Jordan Times
Thursday, June 2, 2005
Civic education
conference begins today
By Melanie Jacobson
AMMAN — More than two hundred participants
representing 61 nations will share their expertise in civic education, exchange
ideas and learn from Jordan's experience at a five-day civic education
conference that begins today.
An annual function of Civitas International, an organisation committed to
fostering civic education worldwide, this year's “World Congress on Civic
Education” is hosted by the US-based Centre for Civic Education, Arab Civitas
and the Jordanian Centre for Civic Education Studies under the patronage of Her
Majesty Queen Rania.
Jordan was selected as the site for this year's congress because of the
“outstanding achievement of the Jordanian centre,” Executive Director of Civitas
International and the Centre for Civic Education Charles Quigley told reporters
yesterday.
With funding from the US federal government, the US Department of State, USAID
and other sources, the Centre for Civic Education works with partners both
within the US and internationally to implement the Civitas Programme in schools
around the world.
The ultimate goal of the programme is to foster political and community
activism, by training citizens from a very young age. “They become more
competent and more responsible in working in the political community, and they
become more effective,” Quigley told the press.
Jordan was the first Arab country to introduce pilot projects in civic
education, sparking a movement across the Arab world and leading to the
establishment of the Arab Civic Education Network, or Arab Civitas.
The Jordanian centre and Arab Civitas “operate purely on a partnership basis”
with the US Centre for Civic Education that leads Civitas International, Arab
Civitas Director Muna Darwish said. In turn, the US centre works “almost
exclusively by invitation” in other countries, according to Quigley.
Jordan is the only Civitas partner to have used the “Project Citizen,”
curriculum on the university level, as well as in elementary and secondary
schools. The project asks students to survey their community and pinpoint “the
problems that government is not treating suitably,” according to Mona Alami, the
in-country coordinator for Arab Civitas.
Case studies from Project Citizen will be reviewed at the conference, and the US
representatives are eager to learn from the Jordanian experience, Quigley said.