Early-childhood education under-graduate students’ awareness of the rights of the child

HNUE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE DOI: 10.18173/2354-1075.2017-0143 Educational Sci., 2017, Vol. 62, Iss. 6, pp. 185-191 This paper is available online at EARLY-CHILDHOOD EDUCATION UNDER-GRADUATE STUDENTS’ AWARENESS OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD Dinh Duc Hoi, Ha Thanh Hoai Early-Childhood Education Faculty, Thai Nguyen University of Education Abstract. Early-childhood education under-graduate students haven’t been deeply aware of children’s rights. Most of the students have just heard about the phrase of the Rights of the Child from different resources but they haven’t read it or had a further study yet. However, after taking part in some educational activities, early-childhood education under-graduate students almost get a better understanding of the contents in the Rights of the Child. Overall, the majority of students are well aware of children’s rights. This paper focuses on the early-childhood educational students’ awareness of children’s rights, helping the educators orientate the curriculum, appropriate educational methods to early-childhood educational students in the process of formulating the future teachers’ personalities. Keywords: awareness, children’s rights, education under-graduate students, pedagogical students. 1. Introduction Nowadays, we are living in a civilizing, modern, developing and integrating society. The living standard is much higher than it used to be. Thus, human rights and benefits are more paid attention and more advanced. The near future of a nation bases on the young. That’s why the issue of children’s rights, nowadays, is a big concern of every country and the whole society as well. However, the current state shows that in Vietnam or any country all over the world children have been working for their own lives; they are treated, badly behaved, forced to work seriously. This leads to the number of children getting involved in the social problems is raising more and more rapidly [2, 3, 5, 7]. Vietnam was the first country in Asia and the second country in the world to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on February 20, 1990 [1, 2, 4, 6, 8]. Since then, despite many difficulties, Vietnam has made much progress in bringing the spirit and content of the Convention into the national socio-economic development and legislation. For example, the Law on the Protection, Care and Education of Children, the Law on the universalization of education, the Labor Code, the Civil Code, the Criminal Procedure Law, etc., have been issued or amended with the regard of the interests of the children. In addition, the Vietnamese Government always works closely with UNICEF to develop a national action plan for children, to conduct communication activities to raise awareness among those who play a role in influencing children, especially early-childhood education under-graduate students, future teachers [3, 6-9]. Received date: 29/3/2017. Published date: 17/5/2017. Contact: Dinh Duc Hoi, e-mail: hoitamlyhoc@gmail.com 185 Dinh Duc Hoi, Ha Thanh Hoai This article deals with the awareness of children’s rights of early-childhood education under-graduate students, helping educators to have appropriate orientations on the program and educational methods for early-childhood education under-graduate students in the process of formulating the future teachers’ personalities. 2. Content We have examined the awareness of early-childhood education under-graduate students about the content of some children’s rights: Rights to Life, Rights to Development, Rights to protection against all forms of sexually exploitions children, sexual abuse and solutions to prevent the state of children abduction and trafficking, based on the results of the study on 150 early-childhood education under-graduate students of Thai Nguyen University of Education (TUE) with the main methods were survey, interview and handling of practical situations. The results are: 2.1. Early-childhood education under-graduate students’ awareness of the content of the children’s rights to life Aiming to find out the awareness of early-childhood students at TUE of survival rights, three different rights were delivered to get students’ assessment of the necessity levels and the collected results are shown in table 1. Table 1: The awareness of early-childhood education under-graduate students at TUE of rights to life Rights to life Necessity No necessity Reluctant to decide Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Children have rights to life and development 150 100 0 0 0 0 Children can attain the highest degree of health, healthcare services and health recovery 150 100 0 0 0 0 Children must be birth-registered right after birth and entitled to have their name or nationality 120 80.00 20 13.33 10 6.67 As can be seen from the table, most students had good awareness of levels of children’s rights to. Specifically, 150 students (accounting for 100%) agreed that children’s right to survive and develop was necessary. 150 students (100%) said that it was necessary for children to attain the highest degree of health, healthcare services and health recovery. No one said that it was not necessary and no one hesitated to decide. There are 120 students (made up 80%) assumed that the rights in which children must be birth-registered right after birth and entitled to have their name or nationality was necessary, while only 20 students (13.33%) thought that it was not necessary and 10 students (6.67%) didn’t know 186 Early-childhood education under-graduate students’ awareness... if it was necessary or not. Overall, early-childhood education under-graduate students’ awareness of rights to life of children is highly appreciated. This was the result of the fact that the students were exposed to the rights from different sources of information. However, there were still a few incorrect answers. The international Convention on the Rights of the Child states that "children must be registered right after birth and entitled to have their name or nationality." However, 20 students said that it was not necessary and 10 students were reluctant to this right. These students had not probably heard or ever heard about but not clearly about this right. 2.2. Early-childhood educational students’ awareness of the content of the children’s rights to education Aiming to find out the perception of early-childhood students at TUE of rights education, we delivered the question “The Law on children care and protection provides for the children’s right to education. Do you think it is necessary?" And the results are presented in Table 2. Table 2: Early-childhood education students’ awareness of the content of the children’s rights to education Rights to life Necessity No necessity Reluctant to decide Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Pre-school education establishments and upper secondary education establishments must have necessary conditions of teachers, facilities and teaching equipment in order to ensure the quality of education. 149 99.33 0 0 1 0.67 The state has passed policies to develop pre-school education, general education, no fee policies, scholarships and social assistance to demonstrate social justice in education. 146 97.33 0 0 4 2.67 Every child, regardless of conditions and circumstances, is equal in learning opportunities and is afforded access to education. 148 98.67 0 0 2 1.33 187 Dinh Duc Hoi, Ha Thanh Hoai Table 2 shows that most students had recognized the necessity for children’s education right. Specifically, 149 among 150 (99.33%) students thought that it was necessary for pre-school and upper secondary education establishments to have necessary conditions for teaching staff, facilities, teaching equipment to ensure the quality of education while only 1student (0.67%) still wondered about this. Most students knew that in order to have the best education, the prerequisite was to have a team of well-educated teachers together with scientific and advanced teaching equipments in order to convey the knowledge in the most vivid and accurate way for students. 146 out of 150 students (97.33%) said that "the state has a policy to develop preschool education, general education, no fee policies, scholarships, welfare to demonstrate social justice in education" was necessary while no students thought that it was not necessary and 4 students still wondered about it. Most early-childhood education students were poor students who were exempted from tuition fees during their studies, which was also a way to motivate them to go to school to improve the quality of their education in all fields. At present, University of Education - Thai Nguyen University is implementing this policy to show social equality in education and create conditions for students to have the opportunity to study in the best environment. 148 students (98.67%) stated that "Every child, regardless of conditions and circumstances, is equal in learning opportunities and is afforded access to education" was necessary. No students thought that it was unnecessary and 2 students still felt confused. Now, kindergarten schools have implemented the policy of inclusive education to create the most favorable conditions for children to have basic knowledge and skills to enter the first grade. Based on the survey, students from K47C, K48A, K50A also had a proper understanding of equality in the learning of children. Thus, it can be seen that early-childhood education students at Thai Nguyen University of Education have a relatively high awareness of the children’s rights to education 2.3. Early-childhood education students’ awareness of the content of the children’s rights to protection against all types of children sexual exploitions, sexual abuse and solutions to prevent the state of children abduction and trafficking Table 3: Early-childhood education students’ awareness of types of children sexual exploitions, sexual abuse Types of exploitions K47C K48A K50A Total Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Forcing children to have sex. 40 100 42 100 68 100 150 100 Children must do pornogra-phic things 40 100 38 90.47 65 95.59 143 95.33 Seducing, enticing and tricking children into prostitution 40 100 42 100 57 83.82 139 92.67 Children must do things that affect learning 32 80.00 35 83.33 48 70.59 115 76.67 Getting children to do dangerous work 18 45.00 28 66.67 40 58.82 86 57.33 188 Early-childhood education under-graduate students’ awareness... To study about early-childhood education students’ perception on the content of the children’s rights to protection against all forms of children sexual exploitions, sexual abuse, we displayed 5 types and got students to choose. The collected results as in table 3. From table 3, it can be seen that 139 students (92.67%) found that Seducing, enticing and tricking children into prostitution was a form of children exploitation of sex and sexual abuse. Every one stated that forcing children to have sex was a form of children exploitation of sex and sexual abuse. Children must do pornographic things was also agreed as a form of children exploitation of sex and sexual abuse by 143 students, accounting for 95.33%. More than a half of the students thought getting children to do dangerous work was a form of children exploitation of sex and sexual abuse. 76.67 percent of the students assumed that children must do things that affect learning was a form of children exploitation of sex and sexual abuse. Article 34 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provided: “Every child has the right to be protected from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. The state must hence prevent the coercion and prostitution of children for such activities as well as safeguard children from pornographic performances and materials.” According to the content of the Convention, all types mentioned were forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. Indeed, the majority of students had learned about this issue and had sufficient awareness as reflected in the above table. 2.4. Early-childhood educationstudents’ awareness of the prevention of children abduction and trafficking * Early-childhood education students’ awareness of the cases of children abduction and trafficking. To discuss the early-childhood education students’ perception on the cases of children abduction and trafficking, some specific cases were shown and the following results were achieved: Table 4: Early-childhood educationstudents’ awareness of the cases of children abduction and trafficking Cases of children abduction and trafficking K47C K48A K50A Total Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Number of answer Percent (%) Exchanging the child to another person for money, property or other benefits of materials for the purpose of sexual exploitation, labor force, taking of the child’s body parts or for other immoral purposes. 40 100 42 100 68 100 150 100 189 Dinh Duc Hoi, Ha Thanh Hoai Accepting children from other people for money, property or other benefits of material for the purpose of sexual exploitation, labor force, the child’s body parts or other immoral purposes. 40 100 38 90,48 65 95.59 143 95.33 Seducing children and extorting their parents for money. 32 80.00 35 83.33 60 88.24 127 84.67 As can be seen from table 4, 100 percent of the students said that seducing children and extorting their parents for money was a case of children abduction and trafficking. The students had well awareness of this issue. There are 143 students (made up 95.33%) said that exchanging the child to another person for money, property or other benefits of materials for the purpose of sexual exploitation, labor force, taking of the child’s body parts or for other immoral purposes was also children abduction and trafficking. In recent years, the state of sexual exploitation, labor force, taking children’s body parts have been increasing. Most students were aware of this issue reading books, watching TV,. . . about cases of children trafficking and abduction. 127 students (taking up 84.67%) thought that accepting children from other people for money, property or other benefits of material for the purpose of sexual exploitation, labor force, the child’s body parts or other immoral purposes was also considered as a form of children abduction and trafficking. Children trafficking and abduction currently occurs in many countries in the world, including Vietnam. There are many forms of children trafficking and abduction; However, children are too small to protect themselve. Therefore, adults should have appropriate educational methods to help them best self-protection. In general, TUE early-childhood education students’ awareness of children trafficking and abduction was quite adequate. The right and full awareness of this issue helped us have the appropriate education methods to get them know how to protect themselves from unpredictable situations. 3. Conclusion Early-childhood education under-graduatestudents, indeed, haven’t been aware of children’ rights. Most of the students just heard about the phrase of the Rights of the Child from different resources but they haven’t read it or had a further study yet. Early-childhood education under-graduate students, however, almost get a better understanding of the contents in the Rights of the Child. Most students were well aware of the above rights more than 80%. Thus, it was possible to assess the awareness of students in the Department of Early Childhood Education on the Rights of the Child was obviously improved. How significantly does the students’ awareness change due if some educational methods are applied to the students? This will be attempted in another paper in the near future. 190 Early-childhood education under-graduate students’ awareness... REFERENCES [1] Leahey, 2001, History of Modern Psychology, pp. 178–182. [2] Leahey, History of Modern Psychology (2001), pp. 196–200. [3] Cecilia Taiana, 2006, Transatlantic Migration of the Disciplines of Mind: Examination of the Reception of Wundt’s and Freud’s Theories in Argentina, in Brock (ed.), Internationalizing the History of Psychology. [4] Children’s Rights, Cornell University Law School. Access 2/23/08. [5] Children and youth, Human Rights Education Association. Access 2/23/08. [6] Lansdown, G., 2005, Children’s welfare and children’s rights, in Hendrick, H. 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