On 10 August 2023, almost 100 teachers and stakeholders from East Asian countries participated in the webinar "Bringing living heritage to the classroom in East Asia", where they were introduced to key concepts of living heritage, its safeguarding principles, and the concrete steps to effectively integrate it in the school life. The webinar was co-organized by UNESCO Multisectoral Regional Office for East Asia (UNESCO Beijing) and the International Information and Networking Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICHCAP). Other organizations also offered support, including the Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU), Mongolian National Commission for UNESCO and UNESCO International Center for Creativity and Sustainable Development (ICCSD).
The webinar was opened by greeting messages from Prof. Shahbaz Khan, UNESCO Beijing Director and Representative, and Ji-Sung Kim, ICHCAP Director-General. UNESCO experts Vanessa Achilles and Linina Phuttitarn led the webinar and facilitated a lively discussion, which was simultaneously interpreted between English and Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Mongolian respectively to provide access to those participants with limited English proficiency. Many challenges in bringing living heritage in schools were raised and discussed by participants and facilitators, including how to handle time management within the packed and exam-oriented curricula, how to handle ethical issues raised between the communities and external stakeholders, and how to bring living heritage to other education levels such as university.
Under the framework of the intersectoral collaboration between UNESCO Culture and Education Sectors, and of the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, UNESCO has promoted an approach to bring living heritage to formal education, with a special attention paid to connect this approach with other educational priorities such as Education for Sustainable Development or Global Citizenship Education. Materials produced throughout the multi-year initiative, including an animation series available in all East Asian languages, an online self-paced course and a resource kit, have been introduced to the participants as resources for their future self-learning.
Primary students are learning about living heritage
Experiences have shown that teaching core subjects such as mathematics, science or literature by using students’ living heritage backgrounds can make thelearning process more relevant, as it creates better connections between what is taught in classrooms and the children’s everyday life. Experiences have also shown that after spending a short time learning about living heritage in pilot classes, students were keen to learn more about their own and their friends’ heritage, and many continue their exploration after the class ended. Bringing living heritage and education together is mutually beneficial, contributing to improving quality education while ensuring that living heritage is safeguarded for future generations.
One topic covered in the webinar
