“History education should be a key part of human rights education and a foundation for young people to develop democratic citizenship,” the Assembly said today. However, “delivering quality history education in schools can be very challenging due to overloaded curricula, traditional teaching practices and, in many instances, highly centralised education systems”.
Adopting a resolution based on a report prepared by Luz Martinez Seijo (Spain, SOC), the Assembly said that “education systems must adapt to social changes and respond with new curricula and interactive methodologies to new demands”. They should also, they said, “contribute to countering the erosion of democratic values, particularly among young people in Europe”.
For these reasons, education for democratic citizenship “should be provided as a distinct compulsory subject”, be included in other relevant subjects, such as history teaching, during all stages of formal education (primary, secondary, and higher education), and form a constituent part of vocational training and non-formal education.
The adopted text calls on member states to facilitate partnerships between schools, cultural institutions and other relevant stakeholders, such as sites of remembrance, museums, archives, civil society and artists, to co-create history lessons. This requires, the resolution states, “time and financial resources for visits and joint projects, as well as training and curricular support for teachers to prepare for the wider historical context this will involve”.
The Assembly called also on member states to undertake a strategic policy review aiming to incorporate the Council of Europe guiding principles for history education.
