Libya Pilots New Civic Education Curriculum for Students
From March 1 to 4, 2018, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) worked with Libya’s Ministry of Education (MoE) to train more than 30 Libyan teachers across the country to use and implement a new civic education curriculum for students in grades 7-9. The curriculum was designed over the last six months in a partnership between IFES and the MoE.
[caption caption="Cover page of the student manual" align="right"]
The curriculum is designed to instill democratic values and respect and acceptance of others in children at a young age. This will help them enter adulthood with these ideas already internalized, promoting greater awareness of civic responsibility and greater participation in civic and electoral processes. The curriculum covers topics such as equality in the family, citizenship values, children’s rights, volunteering, and the rights of people with disabilities. Lessons are structured to include discussion sessions to ensure student involvement and input.
In preparation for the pilot launch, teachers learned new skills to engage students in the learning process and foster interaction between students and teachers. The training included an introduction to new tools and ideas designed to encourage student dialogue, established mechanisms for capturing student feedback on the topics, and incorporated outcomes from brainstorming sessions into lesson plans. These activities are included in the student and teacher handbooks developed by IFES for the curriculum.
In April, the pilot was successfully launched in 25 schools in 14 cities across Libya. During the pilot, IFES is following up with the teachers and monitoring their implementation of the curriculum to both answer questions raised by the teachers and to solicit feedback to improve the curriculum. Additionally, the MoE has asked IFES to expand the curriculum to target 4-6th grades. A nation-wide rollout is anticipated for the 2018/9 school year.
[caption caption="Representatives from the Ministry of Education, Curriculum Office and IFES"]
