Villar bill seeks human rights courses in schools

Students will be required to learn about human rights while in school, if Senator Manuel Villar's bill is passed into law. Senate Bill 2585 seeks to require all public and private elementary and high schools to include human rights courses in their curricula. It likewise says that no school shall be established or allowed to operate unless this requirement is complied with. "We should promote awareness and education of human rights to our youth in order for them to be advocates of human rights and the instruments for the realization of social, economic, cultural, civil and political rights," Villar said. SB 2585 says that the Department of Education (DepEd), in consultation with the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), shall formulate the human rights courses that may be taught as separate courses or as part of existing subjects being taught in the elementary and high school levels. It says that DepEd shall likewise consult and coordinate with the CHR in the writing, printing, and publication of textbooks, manuals and other reading materials to be used in the human rights courses. The measure says that funding for the program shall be sourced from the DepEd budget, specifically from the appropriations for policy formulation, program planning, standards development, and instructional materials development. During the 14th Congress, then Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. also filed a bill that would make human rights subjects a mandatory part of the curriculum of all educational institutions in the country. - Kimberly Jane Tan/KBK, GMANews.TV