Lesson video

- Welcome to our lesson today.

My name is Mr. Miskell and I'll be your Citizenship teacher for our lesson.

Now today's lesson really is an exciting one it's part of a wider and really interesting unit of work.

And our unit of work is about how has COVID-19 as a pandemic, impacted our human rights.

And today we're gonna be looking at one specific aspect of that and that's on education.

And it's really thinking about, what does a right to an education actually mean? Now, before we start our lesson, I'd like you to make sure that you've got either a pen or a pencil and that you've got a sheet of paper.

You should also make sure that you are in a quiet space, so that you can take part in our lesson without any distraction.

So once you've got all those things, you can start our lesson today.

So what are we going to be doing? Well, like I said, a few seconds ago, our main focus today is what does a right to an education actually mean? And in order to do that, we're going to recap some of the work from a previous lesson about the Convention of the Rights of the Child, which is a United Nations document.

It's a convention that protects children's rights.

We're then gonna look specifically about education and why the right to an education might be so important.

Of course, that's something that your parents and your teachers will talk about being so important, but we're gonna think in detail why the right to an education really is important.

Then we're gonna have a little look at when the right to education is denied to young people.

And we know that there have been issues that you may well have faced in gaining access to your education during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But we're also going to look throughout the world on an everyday basis.

Those people who struggle to be able to gain their right to an education under normal circumstances, without COVID-19.

Once we've done that, we're going to really think about contrasting the right to an education in the UK, to other countries, as well.

So today is an exciting lesson and it's great that you're joining us for it.

So the first part of what we're doing is about the UN or the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Now attached to this lesson is a worksheet and the worksheet has got a full list of all 42 Convention of the Rights of the Child rights.

Here, I've only summarised a small number of them, but you can have a little look at that attached worksheets to give you even more of an idea on all the different rights that you have as a young person at the moment.

Now in previous lessons, we explained that there are 42 rights and each one of them is an article.

Now what happened is that countries got together as part of the United Nations and they recognised that children, that young people needed special protections.

And they drew together a document that was a set of rules that countries around the world had to stick to that protect young people and their rights.

Now, one of them is about the right in education that we're gonna be focusing in on today, but there a variety of other different rights.

And to make you aware, you can see that there's Article 7, which is the right to a name and nationality.

You can see the Article 24 for example, is the right to medical care, which we know is so important at the moment, in terms of the National Health Service in gaining access to hospitals and gaining access to our GPs, our family doctors, and all those sorts of things.

Article 26, which gives us the right to help from the government, if we're poor.

So that makes sure that our families are supported with things like housing benefit.

If our families struggle to be able to pay rent, to afford a place to live, for example, because as children, we have, or you have a right to somewhere that is safe, that you can be happy and grow up in, and that is a hope.

And Article 28 is really what we're looking at today.

It's about the right to an education.

These are all binding on governments and what we mean by binding is we mean that governments are held to account to these.

It means that they have to actually stick to them and every few years a report is drawn up about each government and whether they are sticking to those rights of the child.

And so it's really important that they do stick to them.

It's also really important that you understand what your rights are as a young person growing up, because it empowers you, it helps make you much more powerful knowing your human rights as a child.

Now, the right that we're gonna be focusing in on today and from our lesson today is Article 28.

Article 28 is that you have the right to education.

And in order to be thinking about the right to education, we really have to take it back one step.

And the step that we're taking it back to is really thinking about why is education so important? Now we know that our teachers in school will talk about how education is really so important.

They're clearly very right.

And sometimes we forget why education is so important, but we're gonna be thinking a little bit about why the right to an education is just so important for people today.

Now, in order to do that, we've really got to think a little bit about why education is so important.

And what I'm gonna ask that you guys do, is that you get yourself a hand, get your hand.

Draw around your hand, all your fingers and your thumb and then once you've drawn around your hand on a sheet of paper with a pen or with a pencil, I would like you to think about writing a different reason, in fact, five different reasons on all four fingers and one thumb about why education is so important.

So just to summarise, I'm asking you to write down five reasons why education is so important.

So hopefully by now, you've been able to consider some of those things about why education and the right to an education is just so important.

Now you've no doubt come up with a variety of really amazing reasons about why education might be important, but I'm just gonna share with you some of the additional reasons why education is so important that many young people tell me in my class, whilst I'm teaching.

You can add these to your list, as well, as we go through them.

One thing that I'm gonna say, and the first bullet point talks about education gives us knowledge, and it really makes us powerful understanding how the world works and how the world functions makes us more powerful.

It makes us less likely to be exploited by people, because actually we know much more about the world and how it functions.

Education really opens up lots of opportunities.

It means that we can go to college or sixth form and have lots of different experiences in life, if that's something that we want to do.

It opens up opportunities and it closes down barriers in life for people.

Education is also good for our mental and physical health and it protects us.

And part of the reason for that is that education has to be and should be enjoyable, really.

It helps us meet more people.

It helps us understand the world that we live, and the world that we work in and hopefully become enthusiastic about the place that we live.

And the last thing that I'm going to share with you is that education of course gives us skills for life and it gives us skills for work, as well.

And, when we grow up, it allows us to kind of function in that world, and be able to provide for ourselves.

If we're fortunate enough to have a family, to be able to provide for our family, as well, in terms of the world of work, and earning money and doing all those sorts of things.

So the right to an education is really, really crucially important.

It allows us to do so many things and opens up so much for us, yeah.

But clearly despite education being so important, actually there are lots of different circumstances where education is denied to young people.

And what we're now going to look into is when is education denied to children? Now, you know from your own experience, that the right and education has been a difficulty, at least in the United Kingdom, where many people watching this lesson and taking part in this lesson today, are from.

And we know that during COVID-19, there's been a huge impact on our rights to an education.

And here are some front pages and some clips from various different newspapers.

You can see one of them is from the Mirror, which is a national newspaper.

You can see that with young people returning back to school, that those classrooms are gonna be very, very different.

And that educational experience that some of those young people go back to might be very, very different.

The idea of group work under COVID-19 might be very, very difficult.

And that means that the sort of education that young people might get during COVID-19 might not necessarily be as rich or as varied or as lively as you might expect.

You can see that there's another article on screen, as well.

I just want you to look at the headline rather than kind of the very small text there.

And the headline really is from the Times newspaper, a national newspaper in the United Kingdom.

And what that's doing is it's highlighting that if you are in years 11, or if you are in years 13, that exams were cancelled and schools have been forced to shut.

So that's meant that there's been fundamental shifts in young people's rights to education and how they access education.

It means that much education has been moved onto online environments, like the lesson that you are taking part in today.

So there's been fundamental changes in our right to education and young people in the United Kingdom have really struggled to be able to get their right, their full right to education during COVID-19, 'cause obviously we've been very, very worried about making sure that the population, that your families and communities are protected from COVID-19 during this pandemic.

However, when we think about some of these issues, we can think okay, at the moment in the United Kingdom, there have been issues in terms of us accessing education, but around the world, there are also on an everyday basis, in normal times, without COVID-19, there are a number of young people who aren't able to gain access to their education.

And this is a quote, and the quote is from UNESCO.

UNESCO is the United Nations cultural organisation.

And I'm going to run you through this quote.

And the quote says that, "Roughly 258 million children, adolescents and youth were out of school in 2018, around one sixth of the global population of school-aged children," and that's between the age of six and 17 years old.

So what we're finding out there, is 258 million young people, are missing out on their right to an education around the world.

A huge number of young people, missing out on their right to education around the world.

I'm now going to show you a graph.

Now don't worry too much about the numbers here.

And I just want you to, at the scale of this, really, and the graph is from UNESCO, which is the United Nations cultural organisation.

And it helps us to better understand which young people are missing out on an education and the colours that we're particularly interested in, are orange, and those show lower secondary age children and red, that shows upper secondary age children, and you'd fall into those two age brackets.

And what we see is that Europe and north America, now they're at the very top of your graph, a relatively few young people who miss out on an education under normal circumstances without COVID-19, so that's where we live.

There's no surprise that the group of young people who most frequently miss out on education, according to the graph, are children living in less economically developed countries.

Now those are sometimes called the Global South.

So in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, this is a particular problem.

And that is why, we are now going to be focusing on one particular country in Sub-Saharan Africa, as a region, which is Nigeria, and in particular northeast Nigeria.

Now I'm going to introduce you to a case study, and we're gonna use this case study in order to think really deeply about the right to education in different settings around the world.

And I'm gonna take you on a bit of a journey.

Our journey is going to be to northeast Nigeria.

Now, before I take you to northeast Nigeria, I should probably tell you a little bit about where Nigeria is, yeah.

So we can see that Nigeria is a country that is some distance away from us in the United Kingdom.

We can see that Nigeria is in West Africa and it is a country that has a very large population.

It has about 195.

9 million people who live in Nigeria.

So that is almost 196 million people who live in Nigeria.

It's the largest economy in Africa.

But despite that, there are huge gaps between rich and poor in Nigeria and in the region of Nigeria that we're going to be looking in and thinking really deeply about, there's a conflict.

And that conflict is at the very top of Nigeria on the map that you see in front of you.

And actually it's in northeast Nigeria, it's in the northeastern region of Nigeria.

Now in Citizenship lessons, we like to use real sources of information and evidence as we explore really complex issues in the world.

And sometimes that means inviting in an expert into our classroom.

And that's what we're going to do now.

And I'm going to introduce you to Katie.

Now, Katie is the person who is in the middle at the very top of the picture that's in front of you at the moment, Katie is a UK trained social worker, who's been working with children and families involved in the conflict in northeast Nigeria.

And we're gonna get an opportunity in a short while to meet Katie and hear about her experience working with children and families in northeast Nigeria.

Now, in order to do that, what I would like you to do is I'd like you to look out for three specific things from hearing from Katie.

So to do that, I'd like you to make sure that you've got a pen or pencil and a sheet of paper, and I'd like you to make sure that you look at these three specific questions whilst you are hearing from Katie, our expert, who we're bringing into our classroom.

The first question is what is life like for children in northeast Nigeria? So we're really interested to know what the experience is, what life is really like for young people, for children in northeast Nigeria.

The second question there, is what barriers do children face gaining access to education in northeast Nigeria.

Now by a barrier, we mean like a wall, but we're not talking necessarily about a physical wall.

We're saying, what walls, what things, prevented children and young people from gaining access to an education in northeast Nigeria? What stops them always from being able to gain access to an education in that particular region of Nigeria? And the last question I'd like you to focus in on, really deeply, is about one specific aspect that Katie is hopefully going to talk to us about when we invite her into our class in a second, where I'm going to be hopefully trying to consider, the last question is, what role did the radio show that Katie is hopefully going to talk about play in helping children gain access to education.

So what role did the radio show play in helping children being able to get access to an education? So I'm going to invite Katie into our lesson in a short while.

I'm also gonna make this much bigger on your screen.

Remember, that you can stop the video at the moment and pause it, and jot down those questions, if you'd like, or you can return to this spot in our lesson in order to have a look at those questions again after watching the video, from the video part of our lesson, where we interview, we bringing Katie into our lesson.

So let's invite Katie into our lesson now.

Hi, Katie, thank you very much for joining us in our lesson today.

What's life like for children in northeast Nigeria.

- Thanks Ben for the warm welcome, first of all.

So life in northeast Nigeria for children is very different to life in the UK, as you can probably imagine.

There has been a conflict in northeast Nigeria for over 10 years, so you can imagine some of the difficulties children may have faced as a result of the conflict.

Secondly, I would say that family sizes are a lot larger than the UK.

So in the UK, I think the average size is just under, or about about two children.

In Nigeria, you may have maybe eight or nine children in one family, so obviously a lot bigger.

And lastly, I'd say accessing kind of basic needs, like safe drinking water, having enough food, having a home that's safe.

These are some of the difficulties that children may be experiencing on a day to day basis.

- So what are the barriers? What are some of the problems that stop children from getting access to an education in northeast Nigeria, Katie? - Yeah, I think it's definitely important to talk about some of the barriers.

The first barrier, like I mentioned before, is definitely the conflict.

So the conflict has been raging for over 10 years now.

At times it means that people may not have been able to access school.

Children may have had to move as a result of the conflict and schools themselves have also been targeted themselves in the conflict, so sometimes it just hasn't been safe.

Finance is also another big issue, as well.

So I mentioned before family sizes are a lot bigger and you can imagine the stresses on parents or grandparents, aunts, uncles, who may be looking after a large number of children in a family.

Families may not be able to afford to send children to school either.

And lastly, girls face additional barriers, as well.

Nigeria and especially in the northeast is a very patriarchal society.

So boys are more likely to be able to access an education, than girls.

So girls kind of face that extra barrier, as well, when it comes to accessing an education.

- So I know that you also did a bit of a radio show as part of one of the projects that you did over there in northeast Nigeria.

And that's a picture, isn't it that you're sharing with us about it.

What role did that radio show play in helping children get access to education? - It is, that's right.

So you can see, I think, two children on the screen, these were two children who were characters in a radio show that they helped write with our radio producer.

And the radio show was storyline about their life living in a conflict area, conflict affected area.

And some of the difficulties that that meant in terms of accessing an education.

A lot of people in northeast Nigeria have radios.

I know, obviously in the UK, a lot of families have TVs.

In northeast Nigeria radio is really popular.

And what this meant is that a lot of people were able to hear about the importance of education, why it's so important and especially for girls, as well.

And so it helped us reach a lot more people, especially because distances are so big, as well, but that can obviously be overcome through spreading stories, spreading information and messages through radio.

- Thanks, Katie.

And lastly, I know you've talked to us about the general situation for children in northeast Nigeria, but at the moment with COVID-19, what is it really like to be a young person in northeast Nigeria? Are schools closed at the moment? - I think it's a bit of a mixed bag.

I think en large, they have been closed, which means that children are spending perhaps more time at home, but like the issues we talked about originally, having enough, having your basic needs met in terms of having enough food to eat, having clean drinking water, having a safe home, those issues, haven't gone away just because of this pandemic.

In fact, it's made issues a lot more complicated.

So I think in a lot of situations, families are thinking, how are they going to be able to feed their families? How are they going to be able to look after the basic needs for their families during this time, particularly during periods of lockdown, which makes things a lot more difficult.

- Thank you very much, Katie, for joining us.

I know that I've certainly learned an awful lot, from having you here today as part of our lesson.

So thank you very much, and bye-bye.

- You're so welcome.

Happy to be a part.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you, bye-bye Katie, bye-bye.

So it was great there to hear from Katie.

Now let's just recap on some of the questions that I asked you to look out for, before we invited Katie into our lesson.

Well done for listening so intently to what Katie was saying as she was expressing her experiences, of what it's like to do her job in northeast Nigeria.

Now, the first question that I asked you to look out for was what is life like for children in northeast Nigeria? And Katie said to us that the conflict means that a lot of children have to leave their homes.

She said that children often live in larger families.

And she also said that it's often difficult to meet the basic needs of children in northeast Nigeria.

The second question that asked you to look out for, was what barriers do children face gaining access to education? And in response to that, Katie said that schools may not always be safe as they're often targeted in northeast Nigeria in the actual conflict.

And she also said that it was expensive.

It costs money to send your child to school in northeast Nigeria.

And as a result of that, because boys education is often prioritised over girls that girls often face extra barriers to education because of the cost associated with it.

The last question that I asked you to look out for was what role did the radio show that Katie talked about play in helping children get access to education.

And Katie told us that children produced a radio show.

She said that a wide audience was reached during that radio show that really expanded people's understanding of what life was like for children.

And as a result of that, got people thinking and talking a lot more about the right to an education and children's right to be able to go to school.

Now, what I'm going to ask that you do is that you bring together all the amazing knowledge that we've learned throughout this lesson about the United Nation's Convention, of the Rights of the Child about education and why it's so important, but also about the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK and how that's impacted education and your right to an education.

And on top of that, thinking a little bit about what Katie was saying about northeast Nigeria in order to answer a question.

Now that seems a really difficult task, but I'm gonna help you out in terms of how we structure it.

I'm gonna make this full screen so that you can see the actual question at any point.

And remember that you can pause the video and you can have a little closer look into the actual question at any point.

So the question that I'm going to ask that you complete and that you use a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil in order to do this, is to what extent has the COVID-19 pandemic affected children's right to education? Now I just need to define and explain to you what we mean by a few words here.

Now, when it says, to what extent, it saying, how much has? So how much has the COVID-19 pandemic affected children's right to education? The last thing that I probably need to explain is affected.

By affected, we basically mean here, how much has it impacted either positively or more likely negatively on children's right to an education.

Now, often when you ask questions like this, there's a bit of information underneath it.

And we often call this scaffolding, or your teachers might call it scaffolding.

And scaffolding, just like when you climb a building, or if you are renovating a building, building a house, helps you to get to the upper levels of a building.

And scaffolding helps you here to gain those extra levels, I guess.

And the first thing that I want you to do when you're trying to consider answering this question is do this.

And this is how has education changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic? And the hint here, it says, for example, going to the school.

How lessons are taught, et cetera? So it's thinking about the changes in how lessons are taught.

For example, video lessons like this.

The second piece of scaffolding is listed as B And it says, think about the barriers to education that a pandemic has created.

Do all children have access to the same access to education.

So here we're thinking about whether all children have access to the same type of education across the country, as others.

And the last thing is listed as C in the scaffolding.

It says, think about what you heard Katie talking about.

How do the barriers created by the pandemic compare to barriers to education for some children in northeast Nigeria.

So it's asking you to compare the UK and think about the barriers to education that are faced by people in the UK that we've considered in this lesson, to the barriers to education that are faced by children in northeast Nigeria, that Katie talked about.

Now, feel free to pause this video at any point, and look at the question in more detail in order to answer it, you will need to make sure you've got pen and a pencil.

So I'm sure that you've written an absolutely brilliant answer to that question and well done for giving it a go.

I think it was really difficult and particularly because it is asking you to bring together all the knowledge that you have gained from taking part in our lesson today.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you two answers from two separate students.

One is good, but the other is even better.

And I'm gonna talk to you about both answers and what's good about them, but also what can be improved.

And this is really good because it allows you to build your answer even further.

So don't be afraid to add to your answer based upon the sorts of things that I'm talking to you about through these other students' answers here.

So I'm gonna make it full screen and talk to you about this good answer, firstly.

Now this student says, I think that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected a child's right to education because it has meant that they have not been able to go to school.

This has disrupted their learning, which means that when they go back to school, they might be behind others.

It also stops them from seeing their peers and interacting with them face to face.

Now, this is a really good answer.

Now, in terms of the first part of the question where you're asked to think about how education has changed because of COVID-19 as a pandemic.

This is really covered quite well in the answer.

And this student says that COVID-19 means that children can't go to school and as a result, they might be behind others when they go back to school.

It also says, at the very bottom paragraph, that it stops children from interacting with their peers, which means their friends, which is part of learning.

And that's a really good point, as we know that education is all about our interactions and relationships with other people.

The second part of the scaffolding of the question, ask you to focus on the specific barriers that children might face during COVID-19.

And remember that a barrier is something that stops people from getting access to an education.

Now, unfortunately, this student's answer doesn't really cover any of those barriers or give any examples.

Now, in terms of the last part of the scaffolding while this is a really good answer, it completely misses out on the last part of the question, really.

And the last part of the question asks you to compare the barriers during COVID-19 to education in the UK, with the sorts of barriers faced by children in northeast Nigeria.

And now I'm not going to share with you, Now I'm gonna, sorry, apologies.

I'm going to share with you an even better answer that goes into this in a little bit more detail.

So feel free to improve your answer by adding in any extra points as we're going along.

Now, the next answer is an even better answer and the even better answer is here.

I'm going to make it full screen, and I'm gonna read through the even better answer with a you, and now.

The even better answer says this.

It says, I think the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative effect on a children's right to education.

This is because it's disrupted a child's access to education.

They cannot physically go to school or have face to face interactions with their teacher or see their friends.

Not only are these things important to develop academic knowledge, but they also allow the development of social and communication skills and may also make inequality a bigger problem in the country, as some children will be able to access more education than others.

This means that due to a lack of access to technology like laptops and, or other resources, this may widen the education gap between some children and it may hit them longer to catch up.

Many children in Nigeria, face barriers to education on a daily basis.

These include conflicts such as war and expensive school fees.

Girls often face extra barriers as boys can often be prioritised for education, instead of them.

Now in comparison to the first answer this student doesn't only explain how education changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He also gives some really good examples and say why it is an issue.

So for example, they say that missing out on face to face interaction with teachers means that they might not develop the sorts of academic knowledge, which might contribute to a lack of development of social and communication skills.

And this is really deeper level thinking in this answer.

It also goes into an awful lot of detail about the barriers to education that the pandemic has created.

And this student really starts to think and consider whether all children have access to the same education, and gives examples about that and giving examples is really important And it gives an example such as lack of access to take technology like laptops.

It also is a great to see in the last paragraph, particularly that this student goes into an awful lot of detail about the barriers to education faced by young people in northeast Nigeria, that Katie was raising, when we brought her into our lesson, like expensive school fees, conflicts and war.

The student also talks about girls facing specific barriers to education.

And the only way that this could be further improved, I guess I would say, is that the student can make an overall judgement about the barriers.

And it would only be logical, I guess, here to say that children in Nigeria in this overall judgement do face significantly more barriers to gaining access to education than children in the UK.

Now, I hope that by going through those answers, it really helps you to better understand the questions and really develop your skills of comparison and of evaluation, because it's always a good idea to improve your own answer.

So feel free at any point, to stop this video and add in any extra points that you'd like to use in order to make your answer even stronger and better.

Now today's lesson has been really extensive and in today's lesson, we've done an awful lot of things.

And we said, didn't we, that the title of our lesson was what does a right to an education mean? And we were doing that because we were trying to cover an overall unit within these lessons about how COVID-19 has impacted our lives and our rights.

In order to look into the right to an education and in order to go into that in more detail, we recapped on the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

We then thought really deeply about why education was really crucial, why it's so important for young people and you did an activity where you were raising your hands, and you said on each finger and thumb, why education was so important.

Then we said, and we had a little look at barriers that children might face in gaining access to education.

We looked at those barriers, both in the UK and COVID-19, but also in northeast Nigeria.

And in the latter part of the lesson, the last part of the lesson, we answered a question and the question was about contrasting the right to education, and how that was in the UK with Nigeria, as well, and you wrote a wonderful answer.

So thank you very much for participating our lesson today.

I hope you have enjoyed it, and it is really great to be your teacher today.

Thank you very much and bye-bye!.