Towards facilitating a human rights culture at a distance

Abstract

This paper is based on the premise that educators in the present South African socio-political context have a responsibility to facilitate a human rights culture - and that Unisa, the country's only dedicated distance learning tertiary institution, with its access to a wide range of South Africans, has a particularly strong role to play. The writer makes the point that since Unisa already offers a course aiming to help students make informed choices about ethics and human rights, this course could be used to facilitate a human rights culture by making it a compulsory course for all first-year Unisa students. The argument focuses mainly on the approach used to develop the course as a distance learning experience, by outlining the broad elements of the development approach that are implemented in the learning experience presented to students. The writer argues that the course is eminently suited to facilitating a human rights culture in South Africa through distance delivery, and briefly suggests constraints and possibilities in terms of making the course compulsory for all Unisa students.