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Expert’s Commentary
by David McQuoid-Mason
Law-related and democracy education
for countries in transition
Street Law
is a program that is designed to teach school children, prisoners
and civil society in general about law, human rights and democracy.
The teaching is mainly done by senior law students who are trained
to teach in high schools and prisons. The methods they are taught
to use include small group discussions, debates, case studies, drama,
role plays, mock trials, games and critical thinking exercises.
School teachers and community leaders are also taught how to teach
the programme. The programme was initiated in the United States
in 1972 at Georgetown University Law Centre.
Street Law was introduced in South Africa by Professor David McQuoid-Mason
in 1986, and a pilot project established at the Centre
for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Natal. The project operated
in five high schools, and was protected from interference by the
apartheid Security Police by support from the legal profession and
judiciary. The project was a success and was soon expanded to 15
other universities. The core of the programme is a series of five
user-friendly cartoon illustrated Street Law books for school children,
together with accompanying teacher’s manuals to guide the law
student and school teacher instructors.
After the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 it was decided to introduce
South Africans to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A workbook,
together with an instructor’s manual, in the South African
Street Law format, entitled Human Rights for All was published in
1991. Subsequently, South Africans began to prepare for the country’s
first democratic elections in 1993. The Street Law program produced
a book, together with an instructor’s manual, entitled Democracy
for All. A spin-off from the book was the development of the Democracy
Challenge Game which requires players to identify and define 13
different signposts of democracy using interactive techniques in
a board game involving quizzes and debates. The game has been translated
into Swahili and has been adapted to embrace the Convention of the
Rights of the Child in Nigeria.
In 1997 the experiences in South African were used to help the
American Street Law team in Eastern and Central Europe, Central
Asia and the former Soviet Union. The countries involved in the
project were Albania, Belarus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia,
Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The experience
in dealing with the transition from apartheid to democracy in South
Africa was not dissimilar to that of the countries emerging from
communist dictatorship to democracy. This kind of work showed how
important it is to use a variety of experiences with educational
programs to make them a success in another educational and cultural
setting. The NGO Street Law Inc. has established the program by
now in many countries and published materials in various languages.
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Index: Podium
NGOs' critical role in advancing human
rights in transition societies
by Albrecht Schnabel and Sale Horowitz
Working Group 'Human Rights Education'
- Impressios of a Participant
by Walter Fisher
Education for Democracy Foundation
by Krzysztof Stanowski
Focus on Schools and Communities
Interview by Maciej Kozyra with Krzysztof Kacuga
A modern classic on Human Rights Education
Bookreview by Jana Eschweiler
Law-related and democracy education for
countries in transition
by David McQuoid-Mason
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