The work of Shareware School is to develop and deliver analytic tools and short courses that help instructors in simplifying, clarifying and quickening the teaching of integrative Human Rights and Citizenship education over a large number of learners.
Five considerations seal Shareware’s priorities in this decade:
1. Close to one-half of the world’s adult population are oblivious to the human rights cause.
2. Citizenship and human rights education is not a priority in the curriculums of both public and private schools, particularly in the Philippines where Shareware is based.
3. The platforms of human rights education are mainly confined to the universe of social movements and civil society – which arguably affect a relatively small fraction of society. While indispensable and laudable, the courageous efforts of activists are consigned to firefighting human rights violations – leaving little energy left for organized massive rights education.
4. Given the global-labor-market-competitiveness orientation of the country’s education managers (the Philippines relies heavily on remittances of Filipino overseas workers for much needed dollars to sustain raw-exporting, import-dependent industries), it is unrealistic to expect human rights and citizenship studies to gain concessions in regular course allotments anytime soon.
5. There is, however, a legislated National Service Training Program (NSTP) that requires all students enrolled in both public and private colleges and universities – to undergo an equivalent of six units of instruction intended to instill social concern and comprehension and public service orientation among graduates. For that matter, three-and-a-half-million would-be parents, teachers, leaders and taxpayers – enter College each year.
Shareware considers the University of the Philippines and Philippine Normal University, the country's premiere tertiary school specializing in Education sciences – most strategic in establishing templates with which to proportionately gauge, project and plan for the long haul a plausible citizenship and rights education program that is up to the scale of the task.