Peace education (UNICEF, Susan Fountain et al, 1999)
Peace education is an essential component of quality basic education. (It is) the process of promoting the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to bring about behaviour changes that will enable children, youth and adults to prevent conflict and violence, both overt and structural; to resolve conflict peacefully; and to create the conditions conducive to peace, whether at an intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, national or international level."
Source:
UNICEF, Peace Education in UNICEF, Susan Fountain, Working Paper, Education Section, Programme Division, New York, June 1999
This definition, written in 1999, just after the UN General Assembly resolution A53/253 defining that the culture of peace brings together the values, attitudes and behaviours to prevent violence peacefully. It already recognises that peace education is an essential component of quality basic education.
Since then, it has been realised that, by including "the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values" into basic quality education, the impact is much broader than the prevention of violence, as this in itself, increases school attendance, self-esteem, school motivation and educational success, which is what has been missing all along the years of implementing basic education (without quality). This is because the prevention of violence, and the attitudes and behaviours conducive to a culture of peace has a significant impact on teachers' postures and interactions with their students (1).
(1): UNICEF « Learning for peace, Research Consortium on Education and Peacebuilding, Sept. 2015, p.51.
