Chapter 1 - Report of the Education and Public Relations Group I. EDUCATION AND PROMOTION DIVISION “Why did those men think they needed to kill Malala?” I answered, “Because education is a powerful thing.” Angelina Jolie Actress, Special Envoy for UNHCR The effort to promote and raise awareness on human rights continues to be one of the priorities of the Commission. Throughout 2014, the Education Division organised and carried out various programmes with Government agencies, schools, institutions of higher learning (IPT), corporate bodies and civil society. 1. HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION (a) Human Rights Best Practices in Schools (HRBPS) Programme The HRBPS programme was designed to integrate human rights values and principles into the school system itself. The principal aim of this programme is to shape and nurture an environment in which human rights are not only taught and learned, but practised, respected and promoted by the students, teachers and administrators. The success of the pilot schools in carrying out this programme has convinced the Ministry of Education (MOE) to expand the programme to another 138 public schools and 93 Indigenous People schools in 2014. The Commission also selected a number of teachers to be trainers, and, accordingly, they were given the requisite knowledge via intensive training. As part of the plan to transfer the ownership and responsibilities to the MOE, the Commission trained 10 teachers as Master Trainers for this programme. Most of them were already State Councillor Master Trainers and with their skill, they assisted the Commission to bridge the gap between the Commission’s objectives and those of the MOE in conducting the programme. The programme is now dovetailed to MOE’s needs. This approach is more constructive as the school coordinators were able to learn from the first-hand experiences of the trainers who were themselves teachers who have successfully implemented the HRBPS programme in their respective schools. This programme has enabled the Commission to spread information on human rights not only to the children, teachers and administrators but also to the parents and the local community as a whole. 18