Civic responsibility and civic engagement

An innovative approach to skill development for law students

Abstract

UNESCO’ s in-progress reflections series identifies, among other focus areas for competencies and skills development, a citizenship curriculum that would encompass content such as peace, human rights, sustainability, development, values and ethics. These themes pertain adequately to legal education and practice. From an interdisciplinary approach, they offer opportunities for introducing experiential learning, when there is willingness to innovate. This paper presents a student civic initiative devised to translate theoretical knowledge acquired into direct civic engagement at the service of society. The initiative is an integral complement to the knowledge of law and basic legal skills. It puts students face to face with societal needs like human rights, development, cultural values and the diversity of their communities. At the same time, it cultivates in them a sense of personal responsibility to remedy societal inequalities in new ways, demonstrating how theory should inform practice. Their capacity to observe and analyse matters at hand sharpens faster and their critical reasoning improves. For instance, from real problems they see in society, they start looking at laws in a more critical manner. The attempt in presenting this paper is to show how the conceptual framework of unity of knowledge, from which true interdisciplinary approach stems, guided the idea of the civic initiative as a skill development opportunity for law school students. The paper will state the multifaceted problem the initiative set out to solve, its main aim and objectives, as well as the results of its initial phase of execution. The paper also envisages the scalability of the initiative as well as the investigative potential it opens up, regarding the many ways in which experiential learning enhances competencies and skills development in legal learning.