Child friendly schools

UNICEF has developed a framework for rights-based, child-friendly educational systems

and schools that are characterized as "inclusive, healthy and protective for all children,
effective with children, and involved with families and communities - and children"
(Shaeffer, 1999). Within this framework:

 The school is a significant personal and social environment in the lives of its
students. A child-friendly shool ensures every child an environment that is
physically safe, emotionally secure and psychologically enabling.
 Teachers are the single most important factor in creating an effective and
inclusive classroom.
 Children are natural learners, but this capacity to learn can be undermined and
sometimes destroyed. A child-friendly school recognizes, encourages and
supports children's growing capacities as learners by providing a school culture,
teaching behaviours and curriculum content that are focused on learning and the
learner.
 The ability of a school to be and to call itself child-friendly is directly linked to
the support, participation and collaboration it receives from families.
 Child-friendly schools aim to develop a learning environment in which children
are motivated and able to learn. Staff members are friendly and welcoming to
children and attend to all their health and safety needs.

A framework for rights-based, child-friendly schools

All social systems and agencies which affect children should be based on the principles
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is particularly true for schools which,
despite disparities in access across much of the world, serve a large percentage of
children of primary school age.

Such rights-based — or child-friendly — schools not only must help children realize their
right to a basic education of good quality. They are also needed to do many other things
— help children learn what they need to learn to face the challenges of the new century;
enhance their health and well-being; guarantee them safe and protective spaces for
learning, free from violence and abuse; raise teacher morale and motivation; and mobilize
community support for education.

A rights-based, child-friendly school has two basic characteristics:

 It is a child-seeking school — actively identifying excluded children to get them

enrolled in school and included in learning, treating children as subjects with
rights and State as duty-bearers with obligations to fulfill these rights, and
demonstrating, promoting, and helping to monitor the rights and well-being of all
children in the community.
 It is a child-centred school — acting in the best interests of the child, leading to
the realisation of the childés full potential, and concerned both about the "whole"
 child (including her health, nutritional status, and well-being) and about what
happens to children — in their families and communities - before they enter
school and after they leave it.

Above all, a rights-based, child-friendly school must reflect an environment of good

quality characterized by several essential aspects:

It is inclusive of children — it:

 Does not exclude, discriminate, or stereotype on the basis of difference.

 Provides education that is free and compulsory, affordable and accessible,
especially to families and children at risk.
 Respects diversity and ensures equality of learning for all children (e.g., girls,
working children, children of ethnic minorities and affected by HIV/AIDS,
children with disabilities, victims of exploitation and violence).
 Responds to diversity by meeting the differing circumstances and needs of
children (e.g., based on gender, social class, ethnicity, and ability level).

It is effective for learning — it:

 Promotes good quality teaching and learning processes with individualizd

instruction appropriate to each child's developmental level, abilities, and learning
style and with active, cooperative, and democratic learning methods.
 Provides structured content and good quality materials and resources.
 Enhances teacher capacity, morale, commitment, status, and income — and their
own recognition of child rights.
 Promotes quality learning outcomes by defining and helping children learn what
they need to learn and teaching them how to learn.

It is healthy and protective of children — it:

 Ensures a healthy, hygienic, and safe learning environment, with adequate water
and sanitation facilities and healthy classrooms, healthy policies and practices
(e.g., a school free of drugs, corporal punishment, and harassment), and the
provision of health services such as nutritional supplementation and counseling.
 Provides life skills-based health education.
 Promotes both the physical and the psycho-socio-emotional health of teachers and
learners.
 Helps to defend and protect all children from abuse and harm.
 Provides positive experiences for children.

It is gender-sensitive — it:

 Promotes gender equality in enrolment and achievement.

 Eliminates gender stereotypes.
  Guarantees girl-friendly facilities, curricula, textbooks, and teaching-learning
processes.
socializes girls and boys in a non-violent environment.
 Encourages respect for each others' rights, dignity, and equality.

It is involved with children, families, and communities — it is:

 Child-centred - promoting child participation in all aspects of school life.

 Family-focused — working to strengthen families as the child's primary
caregivers and educators and helping children, parents, and teachers establish
harmonious relationships.
 Community-based - encouraging local partnership in education, acting in the
community for the sake of children, and working with other actors to ensure the
fulfillment of childrens' rights.

Experience is now showing that a framework of rights-based, child-friendly schools can

be a powerful tool for both helping to fulfill the rights of children and providing them an
education of good quality. At the national level, for ministries, development agencies,
and civil society organizations, the framework can be used as a normative goal for
policies and programmes leading to child-friendly systems and environments, as a focus
for collaborative programming leading to greater resource allocations for education, and
as a component of staff training. At the community level, for school staff, parents, and
other community members, the framework can serve as both a goal and a tool of quality
improvement through localized self-assessment, planning, and management and as a
means for mobilizing the community around education and child rights.

Related Documents

Child Friendly Schools Checklist

[Word]

Child Friendly Schools powerpoint presentation

[powerpoint]

Related Documents

Child Friendly Schools Checklist

[Word]

Child Friendly Schools powerpoint presentation

[powerpoint]
Child-friendly schools

© UNICEF/
HQ07-1393/Pirozzi

On any given day, more than one billion of the world’s children go to school. Whether
they sit in buildings, in tents or even under trees, ideally they are learning, developing
and enriching their lives.

For too many children, though, school is not always a positive experience. Some endure
difficult conditions, like extremely hot or cold temperatures in the classroom or primitive
sanitation. Others lack competent teachers and appropriate curricula. Still others may be
forced to contend with discrimination, harassment and even violence. These conditions
are not conducive to learning or development, and no child should have to experience
them.

UNICEF is profoundly committed to securing safe, rights-based, quality education for

each and every child, irrespective of his or her circumstances. We understand that schools
are not ’one size fits all’ institutions, and that children have diverse needs. With this in
mind, we have striven to create a comprehensive, multifaceted and dynamic educational
model aimed at helping schools achieve safe, healthy and protective environments that
meet the specific needs of their children.

The Child-Friendly School (CFS) model is a simple one at heart: Schools should operate
in the best interests of the child. Educational environments must be safe, healthy and
protective, endowed with trained teachers, adequate resources and appropriate physical,
emotional and social conditions for learning. Within them, children’s rights must be
protected and their voices must be heard. Learning environments must be a haven for
children to learn and grow, with innate respect for their identities and varied needs. The
CFS model promotes inclusiveness, gender-sensitivity, tolerance, dignity and personal
empowerment.

CFS environments build upon the assets that children bring from their homes and
communities, respecting their unique backgrounds and circumstances. At the same time,
the CFS model compensates for any shortcomings in the home and community that might
make it difficult for children to enrol in school, attend regularly and succeed in their
studies. For example, if there is a food shortage in the community, school-feeding
programmes can provide children both with the nutrition they so critically need and the
incentive to stay in school and get an education.

The CFS model also builds partnerships between schools and the community. Since
children have the right to be fully prepared to become active and productive citizens,
their learning must be linked to the wider community.

At the national level, governments can encourage the development of child-friendly

schools by promoting free enrolment, passing regulations that prohibit corporeal
punishment, encouraging the use of local languages in schools, integrating disabled
children into mainstream schools, allowing pregnant students to complete their education,
and mandating that children living with HIV and/or AIDS have a right to attend school
and continue learning.

In the past decade, the CFS approach has become the main model through which
UNICEF and its partners promote quality education in normal as well as emergency
situations. UNICEF provides School-in-a-Box kits to temporary child-friendly learning
spaces to help children recover from trauma and maintain a sense of normalcy by
continuing their education.

Indeed, there is no single way to make a school child friendly. The model may differ
from country to country, but the common denominator across cultures is a focus on child-
centred education in a safe, healthy and holistic environment.

The success of our work in implementing the CFS model largely depends on partnerships
with other actors in the international arena. Together, we can help ensure that every child
– regardless of whether he or she attends school in a building, a tent or under a tree –
receives a rights-based, quality education.
The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
Dynamics of child-friendly school (CFS) theory in practice

© UNICEF Skopje/2009
Well-equipped and inviting
environments that encourage
learning and support healthy
and attentive minds are
hallmarks of child-friendly
schools.

Context and challenge: Poverty and marginalization create barriers to equitable access
to quality education

Mountainous and landlocked, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (hereafter

referred to as ‘FYR Macedonia’) declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. A
decade later, ethnic tension erupted in a brief war between the country’s Macedonian
majority and Albanian minority. Later that year, the Ohrid Framework Agreement sought
to establish a stable political settlement that recognized the civil rights of minority
groups, but tensions remain.

Despite its relatively well-educated population, FYR Macedonia is challenged by high

rates of unemployment and child poverty. The Roma people, who have experienced a
long history of discrimination, are among the poorest and most marginalized members of
Macedonian society.

FYR Macedonia is on track to achieve universal primary education by 2015. Ninety-five

per cent of its children attend primary school, and there are no significant disparities by
gender, rural and urban location, or geographical region. Marked differences do exist,
however, for poor and marginalized children. Only 63 per cent of 7-year-old Roma
children, for example, attend primary school. Only 10.7 per cent of the country’s children
access early childhood education, and as many as 40 per cent of its teenagers do not
finish secondary school.

The country also struggles with the quality of its education system as a whole. National
scores on international assessments suggest that expected learning outcomes are not
being met. FYR Macedonia ranks among the lowest in the Central and Eastern
Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States region in terms of average achievement
and within-country differences. Girls perform better than boys, and students whose
language of instruction is Macedonian achieve higher results than those who study in
Albanian.

Despite the fact that the number of hours a child spends in school has been linked to
education quality, FYR Macedonia has the shortest instructional day of any education
system in the region. Other challenges include maintaining safe school environments;
promoting multiculturalism and an awareness of children’s rights; engaging students,
parents and community members in the school system; and providing sufficient
educational materials and access to information technology.

Administrative inefficiencies and frequent changes in political leadership have hindered

FYR Macedonia’s ability to implement wide-reaching reforms. The country’s Ministry of
Education and Science (MoES) , however, has taken significant steps towards improving
access to and quality of education.

Its Education and Modernization Project aims to develop an efficient and decentralized
education system. And in an effort to achieve these goals, the MoES and UNICEF agreed
in 2006 to move towards a child-friendly school (CFS) approach within the national
education system.

© UNICEF Skopje/2009
Child-friendly schools are
rights-based and thus ensure
inclusion of all children in
school regardless of their
background and abilities.

Action: Developing a child-friendly education system

UNICEF identified individuals from the MoES and area universities to be part of a
national CFS team. The team included experts in child rights and child-centred pedagogy,
and built upon the experiences of other countries while developing the Macedonian CFS
initiative.

In FYR Macedonia, child-friendliness was defined by:

 Inclusiveness
  Effectiveness
 Health, safety and protection in school environments
 Gender responsiveness
 Involvement of students, parents and community members
 Respect for children’s rights and multiculturalism

Researchers conducted a baseline study in 21 schools, interviewing key stakeholders,

reviewing school documents and observing classrooms. The national CFS team and
UNICEF then worked with the MoES to formulate a strategy that included CFS
initiatives on both national and local levels.

At the national level, the team advocated for legislative change and curriculum
development. At the school level, team members worked alongside students, teachers,
personnel and parents to find concrete techniques to implement the CFS concept in five
pilot schools.

These techniques included setting classroom ground rules to promote mutual respect
between teachers and students and motivate children to learn. Teachers received training
to identify different learning styles; textbooks and physical education classes were
evaluated for gender bias. And children were asked to identify areas they felt were unsafe
and to monitor violence during their breaks.

After one year, five more pilot schools were added to the initiative. Since its inception,
more than 11,000 individuals – including students, teachers, school personnel, parents
and community members – have benefited from the CFS pilot school project.

© UNICEF Skopje/2009
Child-friendly schools help
children learn what they need
to know and teaching them
how to learn, it is about
learning relevant skills as
opposed to just facts.

Impact and opportunities: Strengthened policy and curriculum; a more holistic

approach to education; increasing movement towards reform
Beyond impacting individual schools, the CFS concept has infused the national education
system at large. In 2007, the second year of the CFS initiative, the Parliament of FYR
Macedonia adopted the revised Primary Education Law to extend compulsory primary
education from eight to nine years. The law was followed by a revision of existing
curriculum and the addition of new subjects to ensure consistency with CFS principles
such as multiculturalism, gender responsiveness and life skills-based education.

Anecdotal evidence indicates that CFS is having a positive impact on children, teachers
and the community. Children are learning about their rights and are more fully
participating in classroom activities. Schools are increasingly promoting awareness of
multiculturalism. Teachers report positive change in their schools, and life skills-based
education is steadily being introduced into the curriculum. In addition, the holistic nature
of the CFS framework has allowed various stakeholders – including donors – to build
upon existing strengths and bring their different agendas to the table.

Going forward, UNICEF will support CFS pilot schools to increase participation and
learning, and ensure that the lessons learned are shared and implemented across the
country. FYR Macedonia’s education system must put mechanisms in place to measure
the impact of this change over time.

Although comprehensive change will happen overnight, the former Yugolsav Republic of
Macedonia is slowly seeing the fruit of its efforts to create a child-friendly education
system. For the country’s poor and marginalized children, it can’t come a moment too
soon.

29 May 2009