What is GCED?

Global citizenship education teaches young people to actively respond to the challenges facing our world today.

What is global citizenship education?

Global citizenship education equips young people to think critically about global challenges, inequalities and injustice. It educates young people to respond in ways that create a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable future. 

The Centres of Asia-Pacific Excellence developed a framework for global citizenship education in Aotearoa New Zealand that is underpinned by three big ideas:  global identity, connections and responsibility. 

Developing a global identity helps to strengthen young people’s awareness of who they are in the world through relationships with people, place, and environment.

Building global connections fosters curiosity to learn about, learn with and learn through cultures, languages, people and places within our local and global communities.   

Global responsibility encourages young people to identify, critically examine and creatively respond to the challenges, injustices and inequalities that face our world today.

In the following clip, Hon Jan Tinetti, then Associate Minister of Education, talks about the importance of global citizenship education and why developing global identity, building global connections and responding to global challenges are key components of global citizenship education.

Global citizenship education embraces a lifelong and life-wide approach to learning. It encompasses all ages and developmental stages, including early childhood, primary, secondary, tertiary and adult education. 

Global citizenship education utilises real-life contexts for learning. This life-wide approach makes use of authentic settings for learning and draws on the experience and expertise of members within the local and global community. 

What does it mean to be a global citizen?

Being a global citizen begins with  young people exploring who they are in the world. This involves developing a deep understanding of self within local, regional, national and global communities. It is about being aware of, and interested in, the wider world. 

Global citizens have a deep commitment to social justice, and take an active role within their local, national and global communities to create a more sustainable and equitable world. They are inclusive and relational, embracing a deep respect and value for diversity, and being curious about the equality of connections between people, cultures, places, and spaces. Global citizens have a genuine desire to learn from one another, and work collaboratively to create a better planet for our shared humanity.

©  2024

Te Whai Toi Tangata and the CAPEs Education team