Integrating human rights content into early childhood education helps children to recognise their own values, respect differences, and build a fair mindset from the first years of life.
Children are vulnerable, and their rights, health, and safety need to be ensured. According to Cu Thi Thuy, Deputy-Head of Department of Early Childhood Education under the Ministry of Education and Training, integrating human rights education content into early childhood education programmes is the introduction of legal regulations on human rights into child care and nurturing activities through methods suitable for the psychology and cognition of specific ages in order to initially form awareness, build positive attitudes, and create behaviours that respect human rights in preschool children.
Since 2017, the government has issued the project "Incorporating human rights content into the education programme in the national education system for the period 2017-2025". As a result, preschool education institutions have integrated human rights and children's rights content into educational activities associated with behavioural education and social rules in children's daily lives. In the content of awareness education, children have been initially educated about the rights to education, learning, playing, and sharing.
The Ministry of Education and Training has organised training for key management staff and preschool teachers of 63 provinces and cities.
Through the training course, management staff and teachers have grasped basic knowledge about human rights, children's rights; requirements for implementing and ensuring rights for members in the facility and how to organise educational activities integrating the above content.
According to reports from localities as of December 2024, 50 provinces and cities have organised provincial-level core training courses and directed implementation at all levels and 12 provinces and cities have issued plans to train staff by 2025.
Notably, the early childhood education has carried out the task of integrating human rights education into preschool education programs in a sustainable manner, such as incorporating a rights-based approach into the development of innovative content for the draft Resolution on Innovation of Early Childhood Education Programmes and the draft of the New Early Childhood Education Programme; it has also incorporated human rights education content into the draft of the New Early Childhood Education Programme.
In recent years, the Department of Education and Training of Yen The District (Bac Giang Province) has directed preschool education institutions to synchronously implement from the school's annual task implementation plan to the program implementation plan for each age group, integrating into monthly, weekly, and daily plans in groups and classes.
The department has implemented monitoring and evaluation of the implementation results of the implemented contents, promptly adjusting and supplementing limitations to effectively implement human rights in the preschool education programme at the units.
A representative of the Department of Education and Training of Yen The District said that early childhood education institutions in the district ensure the requirements for a safe, friendly, healthy educational environment, without violence, without discrimination between children, encouraging the free and creative development of children.
Not only Bac Giang, in the 2024-2025 school year, Cao Bang Province's preschool education has proactively innovated management and staff training, focusing on propaganda work to improve the quality of childcare, nurturing, and education.
Many new models and advanced and modern educational methods have been appropriately applied in a number of preschool education facilities. Notably, 100% of preschool education facilities have developed school development plans, focusing on including human rights in the goals and content of educational programmes.
At the same time, they have organised the construction of a child-centred, nurturing, caring, and educational environment, aiming to ensure children's rights, and have been coordinating with children's parents and the community to ensure that children's rights are best implemented in the family, school, and society.
Despite many achievements, human rights education for preschool children still has limitations and shortcomings, such as: some teachers are still confused in expressing the goals and content of human rights education and children's rights when developing educational plans.
The organisation and implementation of training for human rights education staff in localities has not been ensured according to the plan, and there are not enough resources to implement it for the entire team at all levels. On the other hand, the subjects of human rights education are preschool children, whose awareness is still immature and naive, so it is still difficult for them to receive knowledge about human rights and form attitudes and behaviours.
The Ministry of Education and Training said that in the coming time, it will inspect and evaluate the implementation of integrating human rights education content in preschool education institutions; compile the document "Handbook on human rights education for preschool managers and teachers"; and organise a conference to summarize and thoroughly implement the content of human rights education in the national education system for preschool education.
The Ministry of Education and Training will continue to direct the implementation of human rights education in early childhood education institutions in the school year's tasks, with the aim to have 100% of preschool education institutions organise the integration of human rights education content for preschool children aged 3-5.
