TITLE:
The Implementation of the Child’s Right to Participation in the Context of a Student-Centered Education System in the Pedagogy of Integration and Decision Making
AUTHORS:
Joseph Ndayisenga, Ildephonse Sindayigaya
KEYWORDS:
Pupils and Students Participation, Education System, Students’ General Assembly, Students Representative, Bujumbura Schools, Burundi
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.12 No.1,
January
30,
2024
ABSTRACT: Burundi is a party to the African Charter on the
Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It thus has to implement the provisions of these instruments on the rights of
the children including their rights to participation. The object of this
article is to analyze the way through which this is applied in the field of education, especially in
phases of selecting students’ representatives, the organization of students
general assemblies, where democratically students may have the opportunity to
express their opinion and even when they offended the school rules before getting punished.
Other zones were researched also analyzing whether pupils or students
participate in setting up or revising school rules, academic regulations,
revising course outlines, setting up or modifying legal and regulatory texts
governing education. For the sake of data collection, we used a semi-structured
interview conducted with pupils from 4th degree in fundamental
school and secondary school on one hand and from different degrees in
University degrees (Bachelor, Master and PhD). Data analysis was used with Microsoft Office Excel. Results show that
the reality is that a child is a passive beneficiary of the education system
that does not intervene thoroughly in the decision-making even though doing it
would be a best way of integrating children in the idea of the student-centered
education approach.