Study of Teacher’s perception on Global Citizenship Education in ASEAN region*

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to understand the perception teachers have of global citizenship education in ASEAN counties. As interlinkages between people and places have increased enormously in the global era, challenges require solutions attained through global citizenship education. Hence the study focuses on the significance of the perception teachers have of global citizenship education as a way to constitute global solutions through transformative learning. The researchers review country reports and existing literature of ASEAN countries and conduct in-depth interviews with selected teachers in Cambodia, Singapore, and Thailand. The study finds that global citizenship education has already been reflected in the national basic education curricular in most of ASEAN countries. Core concepts of global citizenship education are embedded in basic courses such as social studies, geography, history, and etc. Nevertheless, teachers in ASEAN countries, exculding Singapore, have yet to acquire a clear understanding of what global citizenship education is. Moreover, each ASEAN country has a different cultural and historical background and developmental status and thus, teachers from each country have different perceptions of global citizenship education. In particular, because Cambodia and Thailand have strong backgrounds in religion and humanity, moral and human rights values were deeply rooted in their educational curricula. However, the interviews show that the perception of teachers in Cambodia and Thailand is low due to the lack of a national education budget and excessive workload of teachers. By contrast, the teachers in Singapore do not find much difficulty in accepting and implementing global citizenship education; also, educational materials and information are fully supported by school and government appropriately. Importantly, the study found that the perception of teachers on global citizenship education in ASEAN countries is not only influenced by their national education policies and types of teacher practices, but also other educational challenges such as lack of sufficiently qualified teachers, effective training, and low national educational budget allocations. Due to these challenges, the integration of global citizenship education in ASEAN countries is slow and tedious, aside from Singapore.