Child-friendly Schools - Schools for Life

This initiative involves the use of the internet to promote child-friendly schools: child-seeking, child-centred, gender-sensitive, inclusive, community-involved, environmentally friendly, protective, and healthy approaches to schooling and out-of-school education. Representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), activists, donors, parliamentarians, or citizens who visit the UNICEF website can access a CFS manual and watch a video exploring strategies for:

• Formally recognising education as a human right and ratifying all relevant international treaties toward fulfilling the Education for All goals.
• Ensuring access to education.
• Removing economic barriers to education.
• Promoting inclusion and ending discrimination.
• Providing a broad, relevant, and inclusive curriculum that aspires to equip children with numeracy and literacy, as well as with knowledge in science, the humanities, sport, and the arts and opportunities for play.
• Developing rights-based learning and assessment - e.g., ensure that children's right to express their views is granted and that their views are given due weight.
• Ensuring adequate training, support, and respect for teachers.
• Introducing child-friendly, safe, and healthy learning environments by: ensuring minimum health and safety standards;
  guaranteeing a minimum frequency of school inspections; and providing packages of health care, including nutrition, screening, health checks, malaria prevention, and attention to children affected by HIV and AIDS.
• Providing bilingual or multilingual education for children not familiar with the language of instruction and consulting with the community to ensure respect for religion, culture, and language.
• Ensuring children's participation in the development of relevant school policies.
• Prohibiting all forms of violence against children; supporting and training teachers to end physical punishment and to introduce strategies for non-violent conflict resolution; and providing effective mechanisms for complaint by children.
• Adopting national policies to ensure that child-friendly approaches receive an adequate proportion of the national budget.

Children, Education.