By AUN secretariat
Edited by the AUN-HRE Secretariat
January 2021
The 4th Lecturer Workshop on Teaching Human Rights was held between 31 August to 7 December 2020, aiming at equipping lecturers with skills and knowledge for teaching human rights at the undergraduate and graduate level, enhancing capacity in learning methods and designing course/syllabus. It was jointly organized by the ASEAN University Network-Human Rights Education (AUN-HRE) subnetwork and the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies (IHRP), Mahidol University, Thailand. It is also part of the Strengthening Human Rights and Peace Research and Education in ASEAN/Southeast Asia (SHAPE-SEA) programme and is supported by the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo.
As with many other traditionally offline activities, the workshop was conducted online rather than face-to-face in the manner that was originally planned due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. The workshop was attended by 22 university lecturers of diverse academic backgrounds from 6 ASEAN countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The workshop was divided into two parts, with the first part covering a wide range of topics including human rights fundamentals, international human rights standards and mechanisms, peace and conflict, international humanitarian law, gender and sexualities, development and the environment. The second part covered practical skills for those who are teaching or preparing to teach human rights at the university level.
The topic of human rights continues to be vitally important, especially in an age of unprecedented connectivity. In an era where people are more aware of things happening around them and globally more than ever, it is critical for people to be able to analyze and discuss issues that pop up in an open, meaningful, and tolerant way. AUN-HRE/ SHAPE-SEA continues to train new leaders, build capacity for engagement in important discussions, and encourage academic freedom where possible to allow scholars to pursue their human rights and peace research without unwarranted interference.
