Latest News

Salzburg Global spoke with former Austrian President Dr. Heinz Fischer and Monika Froehler, CEO of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens about global citizenship education 

As our world grows increasingly interconnected, global citizenship education (GCED) is more vital than ever. As UNESCO puts it, “With the transformations that the world has gone through in the past decades – expansion of digital technology, international travel and migration, economic crises, conflicts, and environmental degradation – how we work, teach, and learn has to change, too.”

On November 14, 2023, the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens (BKMC), along with the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea to the UN in Vienna and Salzburg Global Seminar co-hosted the first International Forum on Global Citizenship Education. The event opened the week for Salzburg Global’s own education program Civic and Civil Education: Identity, Belonging and Education in the 21st Century, and sought to share best-practice examples of global citizenship in today’s world and show a path forward in education.

We sat down with 11th Federal President of the Republic of Austria and Co-chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens Dr. Heinz Fischer and Monika Froehler, CEO of the BKMC, to discuss the work of the BKMC and GCED in Austria and beyond.

What is the cornerstone of global citizenship work for the BKMC? “The basis in my opinion are the [Sustainable Development Goals]”, said Dr. Heinz Fischer. “And it's a sort of a global government program. […] Ban Ki-moon was a key figure for accepting this program. We both finished our activities at the same time, Ban Ki-moon as Secretary General of the United Nations. I as President of the Republic of Austria. And so we agreed to work together to collaborate in the direction of fulfilling the SDGs, working on the SDGs and serving a global, just, balanced, peaceful society.”

Creating a global and balanced society means allowing young people to feel fully involved with the society around them from a young age. This requires change in our education systems, which comes with its own sets of challenges.

“Challenge number one is finance, because education is one of the least financed sectors, when you compare it to military spending, when you compare it to economic development. So education needs to be financed. Girls and boys are not treated equally yet worldwide. Many girls are out of school and indeed, bringing girls to school doesn't solve [everything], but is the first necessary step for getting many of the challenges of this day and age right [...]”, said Monika Froehler.

“It’s tricky because what we need to learn in this day and age is a lot about green transitions, artificial intelligence, the massive conflicts that are out there that need to be resolved. And global citizenship education has a massive stake in all of this with values-based education, but also with even cognitive education. Teaching the Sustainable Development Goals in the primary level to tertiary level to lifelong is essential. […] We have to do all our incremental steps to keep, particularly SDG 4 on quality education, at the forefront of national, international policy, but even the private sector, academia, and NGO work.”

Part of being an engaged citizen is also taking part in political life and exercising your right to vote. In Austria, as in many other countries around the world, this is proving to be an increasingly difficult task;  “We have a problem to keep young people interested in politics or at least in traditional politics. They want new forms, new subjects, and new methods of politics, and that’s not easy. […] and we make progress, but not enough”, said Dr. Fischer.

In 2007, during his presidency, Austria lowered the voting age from 18 to 16, the lowest in the European Union. “The idea was that we hoped and still hope that interest for young people on politics and on democracy and voting will be increasing if they have themselves the right to vote. […] It was a key step, and not many countries in Europe have a voting age of 16. But we believe that young people, [whether] they are 16, 17, or 18, already have responsibilities. They have to go to the army at 18. They can have responsible positions in a factory or in a job. And so it was justified to make this step.”

Looking to the future, introducing global citizenship education can take various forms, some of which are already in many parts of our society. “In Austria specifically, there is a whole platform called Bildung2030. It’s a platform for teachers where they can get ready-made lesson plans for their students of all ages on how to introduce global citizenship into classrooms. […] Individually, I have seen the Scouts, I have seen movements like Global Citizen, like the Junior Chamber International, like Rotary, embracing the SDGs and therefore bringing it into the informal and very direct life of their members”, explained Monika.

Like global citizenship education indicates in its name, we should be looking at initiatives around the world and at countries that have already made the concept an integral part of their education system.

“There are many. I have followed studies now that were conducted by Columbia University. They host a center called SDSN, it's the Sustainable Development Solution Network. And they, for example, conducted studies in Morocco, in Turkey, in Ghana about how curricula are adapted to so-called GCED and ESD and how these countries’ efforts by ministers of education have actually transformed quite a lot”, mentioned Monika.

“Another interesting one is Greece, that now established skills labs pretty fast within the past couple of years with an analysis where they said certain skills in our society are missing, and we want to deploy skill labs in the country, in schools, to train kids to be more conscious about the environment, and digitalization.”

Korea has also been a major actor in GCED, being the country that insisted on global citizenship being enshrined in the SDGs and being the founder of a subset of UNESCO, the Asia Pacific Center of International Understanding in Education.

While coined as global citizenship education in 2011, the concept itself isn’t new for many. Known as “ubuntu” (I am because of who we all are) in African philosophy, or “sumac kawsay” (harmony within communities, ourselves, and nature) in Quechua, the common goal for peace and understanding for all has existed for centuries. We are merely now catching up on the idea that peace only exists if we are all equally involved. As Monika quoted, Ban Ki-moon once said when urging for global citizenship; “We don’t have a plan B because we don’t have a planet B. […] Think beyond yourselves… you hold the keys to unlock a more sustainable, peaceful and prosperous world.”