By Hina Kiyani
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (FBISE) has announced to hold the sixth annual `International Day of Education English Speech Contest’ on January 23. This year’s International Day of Education theme, “Learning for Lasting Peace,” seeks to illuminate the path to global harmony through the voices of our youth.
An official of FBISE told on Wednesday that the Board had called upon the Secondary School Certificate and Higher Secondary School Certificate students to share their perspectives on fostering peace, tolerance, interfaith harmony and gender equality through participation in the contest. Through this opportunity, the students having extraordinary oratorical skills can show their eloquence and originality and ignite discussions on critical global issues while representing their institution at a national level, he told.
The Day will be celebrated through a number of activities including seminars, discussion programmes, competitions, conferences and rallies.
According to the UNESCO, the world is seeing a surge of violent conflicts paralleled by an alarming rise of discrimination, racism and hate speech.
The impact of this violence transcends any boundary based on geography, gender, race, religion, politics, offline and online. An active commitment to peace is more urgent today than ever: Education is central to this endeavor, as underlined by the UNESCO’s recommendation on education for peace, human rights and sustainable development.
Learning for peace must be transformative and help empower learners with the necessary knowledge, values, attitudes and skills and behaviours to become agents of peace in their communities.
UNESCO is dedicating this year’s International Day of Education to the crucial role education and teachers play in countering hate speech, a phenomenon which has snowballed in recent years with the use of social media, damaging the fabric of our societies. .
