In our effort to introduce peace education in a variety of disciplines in Mindanao higher education, we started working with political science teachers in Davao in 2014. Since then, a core group of teachers from the political science programs of five higher education institutions (HEIs) in Davao have been capacitated through trainings on peace and conflict topics, learning exchanges with other educators and practitioners in the field of governance and peacebuilding, and other thematic workshops. In addition, we support selected partner HEIs in their pursuit to establish their institutional peace centers.
Since 2021 and as a response to the growing need to expand the group, the project aims to engage other social science teachers in the integration of peace and conflict topics. Professors teaching history, international relations, sociology, among others, can now also stand to benefit from the capacity building and accompaniment in integrating the topics into their own respective syllabi.
Together with the social science teachers and administrators of the five partner HEIs, we are creating opportunities to integrate contextualized peace and conflict issues in the curricula of their social science programs. Discussing peace and conflict subjects in the (virtual) classroom offers a platform for students to be engaged in Mindanao peace processes early on. When students are able to reflect on these topics more in-depth, they are able to engage in a more meaningful and transformative way even as they go into their future careers as lawyers, government employees, policymakers, teachers, and politicians.