Global Citizenship Education

Global Citizenship Education (GCEE), not being a new subject, is meant to be integrated in the different disciplines. Unesco and the Department of Education has seen to the availability of teaching and learning materials using teaching approaches where GCEE is the context in teaching the disciplines.

From extension services to service learning. Extension services is a term that originated during the land grants in the US and which under the US we borrowed the said term as "extension programs" in our colleges of agriculture. Later, all our other academic programs adopted the term as a form of community service or community engagement. To date, this term has been translated and refined as a pedagogical approach known as service learning. In service-learning students, "learn theories in the classroom and at the same time volunteer with an agency (usually a nonprofit or social service group) and engage in reflection activities to deepen their understanding of what is being taught." As a pedagogical approach, students learn theories and their translation into practices. Students are taught to reflect on this process "to broaden knowledge and critical thinking skills for social change." (https://www.elmhurst.edu/blog/what-is-service-learning/). Service learning has been related to such terminologies such as "civic engagement, community development, advocacy, philanthropy, social change, volunteerism, community service and experiential learning." (https://www.elmhurst.edu/blog/what-is-service-learning/) "As a result of service learning, students learn more about the community and themselves while fulfilling a need in the community and meeting classroom or degree requirements" such as equivalent academic credits. Our universities "provide various service-learning programs for their partner communities, to address students' understanding of real-life community needs." Service learning as a pedagogical approach in GCED "promotes critical and reflective thinking in order to develop civic responsibility and commitment and skills in identifying community problems and needs." If the NSTP were to be globalized and internationalized, it would help to provide our students with a "broader perspective on different elements that affect the world and people in it." It will also move "students to play an active and leading role in creating a better world."