For a better today and tomorrow

– Piyali Sarkar Debnath, UNESCO MGIEP

“Youth are often the first to stand against injustice. Young people are a force for transformation”.

– Ban Ki-moon

One of the most captivating lines that captures the source and solution of human conflict and peace is etched on the Square of Tolerance at UNESCO’s Garden of Peace in Paris. It says that since wars began in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed. Nothing could be more clear than this message that everything lies in our hands – whether conflict or peace. It’s just a change of heart that is required and who better to bring about that change than the young people.

If there is one thing that comes out clear from the various youth movements across the globe – be it the Arab Spring or the protests of university students in Pakistan condemning the terror attack on the innocent children in Peshawar, or the Occupy Wall Street protest – it is that young people have the power to positively transform conflict situations and establish foundations of a peaceful world. The youth today realise the need to seize opportunities that will result in resolutions and transformations. They want to play an integral part in the decisions that will shape their future.

In this era of globalization and technological advancement, there is a gradual emergence of the notion that the world is inter-connected and interdependent more than it ever was. And thus arises the concept of “citizens of the world” or “global citizens” who believe they belong to the global community and express solidarity and a collective responsibility for humanity as a whole.

This growing interconnectedness of the world community and the emergence of new kinds of global challenges calls for a transformative shift in our understanding and our collective and individual response to these issues.
UNESCO MGIEP identifies the youth as a primary stakeholder in the discourse on peace, sustainability and global citizenship.The premise of this discourse is based on the strong conviction that development processes needs to place youth at the center and create an enabling environment for active youth engagement.

In order to understand the pulse of the young people today and to understand how they feel about the notions of peace, sustainability and global citizenship, UNESCO MGIEP undertook a pilot global survey called “YOUth Speak”. This paper briefly presents the methodology and some of the key preliminary findings from the survey. A key trend emerging from this survey is increasing consensus among young people on global citizenship, based on their opinions on climate change, globalization, resource consumption or distribution, cultural diversity, gender, and last but not least national and international policies.

Methodology

The “YOUth Speak” survey was launched on 29 September, 2014, and was available online for two months till 29 November, 2014. The survey was promoted through social media and emails among various youth network across the globe.

The lesson learnt from the pilot survey will form the basis for a more detailed and far-reaching youth survey conducted by UNESCO MGIEP in collaboration with its partners. The rationale behind the survey is that young people know what will work for them and what will not.

• The pilot survey had three key objectives:
• Understand concerns of the youth on global and national issues
• Analyse the perceptions of today’s youth on being part of an inter-connected world – their views especially on social, ecological and economic issues
• Explore whether the young people are prepared to assume roles as global citizens and to pursue sustainable and harmonious societies

The survey did not select respondents and by the nature of execution does not provide a representative sample of the global youth.

Typeform, an Internet based survey tool, was used as the platform for the survey. A total of 1526 individuals from 126 countries took this survey.

Limitations of the survey

Since the survey utilized the online platform it was limited to respondents having access to the Internet. The survey was mainly distributed through youth networks and social media. Also ICT literacy was critical as this was a self-administered survey. These circumstances might have prevented many from accessing the survey. Furthermore, the survey was available in English, thereby excluding non-English speaking participants.

The survey should not be viewed as a representative voice of the youth belonging to these 126 countries but rather as an attempt at understanding the perceptions of the youth across the globe and identifying their voices on issues concerning their lives.

Profile of the respondents:

This section provides an overview of the demographic profile of the respondents such as country of nationality, age, gender, education and media habits.

COUNTRY:
The survey was launched on the internet, making it possible for anyone to access it across the globe. While the youth from 126 countries participated in this survey. (Figure 1), the majority of the respondents were from Mexico, India, Italy and Canada.

AGE:
More than two-fifths (41 per cent) of the respondents were in the age group of 15-18 years and more than one-fifth (22 per cent) fell in the age group of 23-26 years (see Figure 2). The remaining respondents were distributed as follows: (i) 15 per cent were between 19 and 22 years; (ii) 14 per cent between 27 and 30 years; and (iii) 7 per cent between 31and 34 years.

This initial demographic distribution seems to suggest that the youngest cohort, i.e., those between 15 and 18 years old, have the highest interest in voicing their concerns about their future. This might suggest that targeting secondary education is a high return intervention strategy as we try to promote a peaceful, sustainable global society. One of the interesting things to note here and, maybe pursue further, is the dip in interest among the people in the age bracket of 19-22- the university education years- and the revival of interest among those in the age bracket of 23-26 years.

GENDER DISTRIBUTION

GENDER: The data shows there was a relavitely higher female participation (47 per cent) in the survey as compared to the male participation (47 per cent). If we look at a cross-referencing between age and gender, we also observe that the higher proportions of female participation came in from the younger age cohorts.

 EDUCATION STATUS

The data on education reveals that the majority of the respondents (40 per cent) were studying in school between secondary and higher secondary schools (grade 8 to 12). More than one-fifth of the survey respondents were either graduates or pursuing graduation (30 per cent) and about one-fourth of the respondents (24 per cent) were post graduates or pursuing post graduate studies. (Figure 4)
From this, we might infer that the most of the survey participants were students. In this report, educational qualifications up to Class 12 have been classified under ‘up to secondary’ and educational qualifications from Bachelors/Associate degrees or equivalent qualifications has been grouped under ‘Graduates’ and respondents with masters degree and doctorate have been classified as ‘Masters and above’.

CURRICULUM:
For greater perspective, we further analyzed whether the respondents had academic exposure to topics such as peace, social justice and human rights. They were asked to select an appropriate response from the following choices – ‘not at all’, ‘just a little’, ‘somewhat moderately’, ‘quite a lot’ and ‘very much’. The data presented here has been merged into three categories. As can be seen figure 5, the three sub categories of “Not at all”, “Somewhat/Moderately” and “Quite a lot” carry equal weight in our data, hence, avoiding biases that could have been potentially generated with this aspect at play.

MEDIA HABITS:
When we look into the most accessed form of media, it is not surprising to find that the Internet (93 per cent), television (82 per cent) and newspaper (80 per cent) appeared as the most popular sources of information for the young people. Therefore the data clearly suggests the emergence of the worldwide web as the most sought after medium not only for communication but also for information collection and dissemination. The traditional sources such as books, magazines, and articles played a minor role in the acquisition of information. This result suggests a major shift in the trends around information gathering and dissemination by the youth. (Figure 6)

Key Findings

In the survey, participants responded to attitudinal statements on a scale of one to five, based on their agreement or disagreement. For preliminary analysis, these scales have been converted into a three-point scale: ‘agree’ (which includes the cumulative percentage of ‘agree’ and ‘strongly agree’) neutral, and disagree (which includes the cumulative percentage of ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’).

Around 74% of the young people believe in an interdependent world and feel that nations should make policies keeping in mind their impact on other countries.

More than 80 per cent of the respondents above the age of 18 strongly felt the need for responsible policy-making (see Figure 8). Interestingly, only 63 per cent of respondents in the age group 15-18 said they felt the same way.This calls for further investigation.

Respondents by level of education

We also see from Figure 9 that respondents with higher education reported more in agreement towards the need for responsible policy making in comparison to the school going respondents.
There is a greater understanding of the interconnectedness and interdependence of countries across the world, which are the underlying values of sustainability and the need for global citizenship to address our common heritage.

2. Youth from across the globe called for a responsible government and showed empathy and a willingness to contribute to create a shared and harmonious world

• Eighty two per cent of young people (between 15 and 34 years) agreed that governments should promote equity in the distribution of resources (Figure 10). Further analysis revealed that the higher the education among the respondents, the stronger the agreement that governance should be more equitable.
• Figure 11 shows that around half of the youth surveyed (51 per cent) responded that progressive taxes on the rich are a good measure to curb inequality.
• Approximately 55 per cent of the youth responded that they were willing to boycott brands or products that are known to exploit people anywhere in the world. Just how important the above point was for today’s youth comes across from the fact that approximately 57 per cent said they were willing to cut back on their own luxuries for the wellbeing of others. (Figure 12)

3. Approximately 87% of the respondents are ready to learn to live together

More than four out of five (87 per cent) of the youths surveyed were comfortable working with people who have different cultural values. (Figure 13)

Again, we see from Figure 14 that university education plays a crucial role in shaping opinions and understanding. However, this trend may perhaps be reflecting the fact that our respondents are English speaking e-citizens with a broader worldview.

The findings go towards supporting the message as proposed by the International Commission for the 21st Century, in its report (Delors et al) to UNESCO, Learning: The Treasure Within. Often known as the Delors Report, the main argument of this report is that if education is to succeed in its tasks, then the curriculum should be restructured around the four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.
It points out that education is an indispensable asset for humankind in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice. The report also highlights that education has a foundational role to play in personal and social development and was one of the principal means available to foster a deeper and more harmonious form of human development and also to reduce poverty, exclusion, conflicts, oppression and war.

4. Young people feel responsible towards the environment

More than two-thirds (69 per cent) of the youth thought that their activities on an individual level did contribute to climate change. It seems that the push for climate change education has brought about a greater understanding of individual responsibility for climate change through personal consumption patterns among other activities. (Figure 15)

5. Youth believes in equal opportunities

Interestingly, as seen in Figure 16, more than half (56 per cent) of the youth surveyed were uncomfortable with the fact that some people in the world have more opportunities than others. This suggests the positive attitude of the youth in believing that everyone should get equal opportunities in life. Interestingly, however, a 28 per cent also felt that unequal opportunities is acceptable – a rationale worth exploring further.

6. Youth undecided on the use of force to maintain law and order

With regard to the statement, “In times of insecurity, it is sometimes necessary to use force against others to maintain law and order,” (Figure 17) 39 per cent of the participants disagreed and almost 34 per cent agreed that use of force was needed in such volatile situations. Almost 27 per cent respondents were neutral on this issue. A more detailed analysis of this result warrants attention in future follow-up surveys.
It would be interesting to see if the answers would change if we were to more narrowly define what constitutes “insecurity” and “law and order”.

7. Youth responses on formal education (curriculum covering issues of human rights, social justice, etc.) 

As part of this pilot survey, the youth were asked whether issues such as human rights and social justice were adequately covered by their education curriculum.
As we have seen earlier (Figure 5), about 35 per cent feel that their curriculum does not adequately cover issues of human rights and social justice. It is also interesting to note that 33 per cent of the youths surveyed feel that the formal education curriculum moderately covers these issues, therefore, clearly indicating a need to introduce as well as strengthen these courses as part of formal education.
Figure 18 shows that insufficient emphasis is given on topics like human rights, social justice, etc in the formal education curricula from the school to the university level. One of the reasons could be that these concepts are generally covered in the domain of social sciences in formal education. As students choose specialized domains in their higher studies, this could be one of the reasons why we see a slight dip in the percentage of course content at the university level.
While analyzing the attitudinal statements, the youth were found to be have a progressive outlook. Very importantly, they were more than willing to take steps and actions to make the world a better place. This leads us to believe that perhaps embedding the concepts of peace, human rights, social justice, sustainability in different disciplines like mathematics, chemistry, physics, geography, economics, engineering, etc. could lead to greater opportunities for students to gain a broader and deeper understanding of these concepts which they are keen to learn and use in their daily lives.
We studied our questionnaire on the basis of such curricula. Overall, we found that formal education on such topics did not make a significant difference to the responses of our target audience.
The above finding makes for a strong case for embedding such concepts. Given the heavy academic load in school these days, there is not much scope to add more subjects or topics. Embedding nuances and sensibilities of value based topics such as global citizenship, peace and social justice in regular school curricula seems like the next best thing to do. This way, values will be imbibed in the daily life.

8. Youth places education first 

Among the important issues that were identified by the respondents, around 80 per cent stated good education, followed by 54 per cent who highlighted the need for a responsible government and 45 per cent who cited improved healthcare. The youth in this pilot survey also identified peaceful and tolerant societies and sustainable development as important.
A surprising fact highlighted in this part of the survey is that a relatively lower emphasis was placed on employment compared to issues relating to education, peace, and responsible government. However, the very high numbers weighing on education suggests the importance that the youth place on education. One reason for that could be the traditional identification of good education with future employment opportunities. Other reasons could be that the soft power of education increases the sense of an individual’s well-being. It is definitely an area worth further exploration in follow up surveys and studies on the relationship between education and well-being.

Table 1: Important issues identified by the youth
Which of these are most important to you? Per centage
Good education 81
Responsible government 54
Improved health care 45
Peaceful and tolerant society 40
Sustainable development 38
Safety and security especially for women 38
Better employment opportunities 35
Freedom from racial discrimination 34
Access to safe drinking water and sanitation 33
Access to nutritious food and freedom 33
Nature conservation 32
Economic development of your country 29
Peace between the states and internal 29
Freedom from discrimination based on sexual preferences 24
Access to internet and social media 20
Main streaming bringing forward the youth voices in the development processes 19
Freedom of movement across borders 19
Energy security 17
Others 1

9. Youth are active agents in social campaigns 

Figure 19 shows that, on an average, the youth of today are actively involved in social issues and campaigns. More than 60 per cent of the respondents have associated themselves with social campaigns. And more than two out of five have also actively associated themselves with issues of social concerns.

Conclusion

This 21st century world is a place which has become more interconnected and interdependent than ever. It has also become a place where there is reduced premium placed on peace, human rights, tolerance, and justice both at the local and global levels. Thus the need arises for an education system that leads to transformative learning by placing increasing emphasis on the importance of values, attitudes and convictions as critical complements to the existing core foundations of knowledge and skills.
The pilot survey shows that youth are relatively well informed and willing to be actively involved in creating a more just and peaceful world. Transformative education at its core necessitates a youth-driven agenda where it aims to empower this generation to learn about its rights and obligations and to lead the way towards a more peaceful and sustainable co-existence. It will allow young people to become proactive contributors to a more just, peaceful, inclusive, secure and sustainable world. The consolidation of the international human rights regime, the greater interconnectedness and interdependence of individuals and groups across the world, and the emergence of new forms of transnational or post-national civic engagement are all expressions of this transformation.
However, an area worth more detailed exploration is the level of satisfaction of the youth with the current educational systems and suggestions for creating a system that could impart global citizenship education so that the youth can be empowered to assume active roles in resolving global challenges and ultimately become agents for change.

The next phase of this initiative is two-fold. The first aim is to broaden the scope of the survey to reach a broader group of the youth and to include those whose voices are often not heard. These include the rural, marginalized and oppressed groups within our societies across the world. Secondly, we will go into more details on soliciting the views of the youth on the present education systems and explore how these can be improved to foster peace, sustainability and the concept of global citizenship.

Acknowledgment: UNESCO MGIEP would like to acknowledge all the respondents for their valuable contribution. Without your support this survey would not have been possible. UNESCO MGIEP will like to acknowledge Jaya Sinnathamby, Stanley T. Asah and Mohan Damodar for their valuable inputs in designing the survey and Geetika Dang for her inputs on the report.