A wide variety of stakeholders are involved in the Promoting Rights in Schools process, from the local to the district and national levels. Before starting work, it's important to hold a launch workshop at each level to introduce the PRS to key stakeholders and to ensure that they fully understand the process and are committed to taking the work forward.

National launch workshop

The one-day national orientation workshop should bring together key education stakeholders including representatives of the Ministry of Education, teachers' unions, education coalitions, INGOs, UN agencies, human rights organisations, media, youth organisations, women’s organisations, children’s rights organisations and academic institutions. The agenda will vary according to the context but is likely to include:

• Review the current state of education against the national legal and policy framework and the 10 rights of the PRS charter.
• Explain the role of the PRS in supporting the realisation of the right to education through participatory processes and citizen action.
• Outline the PRS process, adapted for your national context, and discuss.
• Discuss other frameworks that are in use, for example UNICEF’s Child Friendly Schools approach, and agree on complementarities.
• Set up a national steering committee to roll out the action plan from the meeting and identify potential alliances with other education actors.
• If needed, recruit a consultant or university partner familiar with the right to education to guide the process. Make sure that you also involve your monitoring and evaluation coordinator from the beginning.

District launch workshop

Organise a one-day workshop at district level to introduce the PRS to key education stakeholders including district education staff, parents, teachers, local leaders, SMC representatives, local NGOs, children’s representatives, members of mothers’ clubs and others. The agenda might include:

• Use a scorecard for a quick assessment of the status of the right to education in the community. Aim to reach a consensus on gaps in the education system.
• Use a chapatti diagram to identify key actors and institutions working on education in the area.
• Set up the District Advisory Group.
• Continue the process, started at national level, of contextualising the PRS resources to ensure they are as relevant as possible to the local context. This might include translating the resources into local languages and creating child-friendly versions of the poster for distribution and awareness raising in schools and communities.

Local workshops

Once the schools have been selected (see PRS 2 - Selecting the schools) hold discussions and workshops in each school with community members and other school stakeholders to create an understanding of human rights, including children’s right to education, so that respecting these is recognised as a fundamental part of the school’s responsibility. Make sure that all the schools have a poster of the charter of 10 rights and that it is used as reference within the school. Organise a workshop with teachers, parents and children to design a child-friendly version of the charter or other age-appropriate resources for children about their rights and ensure schools are creating spaces for children to learn about their rights both in and out of class. At this stage you will also select and train your local research team. See PRS 3 - Preparing for data collection for more information.

References

• Right to Education Project Country Factsheets, Right to Education website.
• Promoting Rights in Schools: An Implementation Guide, ActionAid, 2015, pp.18-21, 26-28, 90.