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Child rights and equity through
climate change education
Suchitra D. Sugar, Consultant, Climate Change and Environment Education, UNICEF,
Stephanie Hodge, Education Specialist, Cross Sector Coordination, UNICEF and
Sonia Sukdeo, Education Officer, Disaster Risk Reduction, UNICEF
U
NICEF is contributing to the Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development (DESD) through quality
education, girls’ empowerment initiatives and the main-
streaming of equity considerations
1
within its Basic Education
and Gender Equality programme. UNICEF’s ideological frame-
work for good quality education is founded upon the Convention
on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The application of the CRC to
education provides a whole-child, equity-promoting and rights-
based approach. It stresses that all children – but especially the
marginalized – have a right to good quality education, including
education on, and participation in, issues that affect their lives,
such as climate change and environmental degradation. The CRC
underpins the key principles that drive the process of making
schools child-friendly. These include the principles of democratic
participation, child-centredness, inclusion and safe,
protective environments.
Over 72 million children are out of school.
2
In sub-
Saharan Africa only 65 per cent of primary-school-aged
children are in school – the lowest rates of primary school
participation in the world. In UNICEF’s 2010 publication,
Progress for Children, UNICEF’s Executive Director,
Anthony Lake, states:
“Today, it is clear that we have made significant
strides towards meeting the MDGs… But it is increas-
ingly evident that our progress is uneven in many
key areas. In fact, compelling data suggest that in the
global push to achieve the MDGs, we are leaving behind
School girls identifying environmental features and hazards in their community on a map that they have created
Image: Selim Iltus