Overview

What is Global Citizenship Education?

Global Citizenship Education is a lifelong educational process which aims to increase public knowledge and understanding of the rapidly changing, interdependent and unequal world in which we live. By challenging stereotypes and encouraging independent thinking, global eitizenship education helps people to critically explore how global justice issues interlink with their everyday lives.

Global Citizenship Education is transformative. It enables people to analyse and challenge the root causes and consequences of global poverty and inequality and to transform the social, cultural, political and economic structures which affect their lives and the lives of others. It aspires to change the way people think and act; empowering them to take action and become active global citizens in the creation of a fairer, more just, more secure and more sustainable world for all.

Global Citizenship Education addresses a wide range of themes and issues, including:‌

Why do we provide Global Citizenship Education funding?

Our funding to global citizenship education supports the implementation of the Irish Aid Global Citizenship Education Strategy 2021-2025‌. The long term goal of the Strategy is that through the provision of global citizenship education, people are empowered to analyse and challenge the root causes and consequences of global hunger, poverty, inequality, injustice and climate change. 

Global citizenship education plays an important role in building the conditions in which we can continue to meet ongoing global challenges, contributing to both our foreign policy and international development policy objectives.  The four core values underpinning our foreign policy are a fairer, more just, more secure and more sustainable world.  Irish Aid promotes these values abroad through our international development programme and at home through our support for development education.  Global citizenship education promotes citizenship literacy among the Irish public by deepening understanding of global justice issues and Ireland’s core values, advancing our foreign policy aim of contributing to the collective international effort to build a better world for all.

Our funding for global citizenship education enables us to work in partnership with educators across the primary, post-primary, higher education, youth and adult and community education sectors to increase the accessibility, quality and effectiveness of development education in Ireland.‌

Projects and programmes approved for global citizenship education funding share the following characteristics:

• Contribute to the learner’s knowledge and understanding of global justice issues and facilitate the learner to engage with multiple perspectives
• Enhance the learner’s skills and competencies, placing particular emphasis on the development of critical thinking skills
• Strengthen the leaner’s values and attitudes, supporting the learner to recognise our global interconnectedness and consequently our rights and responsibilities as global citizens
• Promote action at a local and global level,  empowering the learner to engage in individual and/or collective action to bring about a positive difference in the world

All projects and programmes approved for global citizenship education funding have a strong focus on achieving the results set out in the Global Citizenship Education Strategy and the Performance Measurement Framework and contribute to awareness raising of and engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals.