Civic Education: Allowing young people to change the
world by their political participation.
Realyn D. Tañeca
Occidental Mindoro State College - Lubang Campus
reedst0825@gmail.com
September 28, 2020
S uccessful democracy depend on the
active participation of informed
citizens. Civic Education aims to inform and
Philippines, the Department of Justice and
Human Rights Commission are the states
institutions that promote the Civic
empower citizens to fulfil this role. It Education. Its overall objective is to promote
empowers us to be well informed active active and responsible citizenship for a
citizens and gives us the opportunity to successful democracy. Successful
change the world around us. It is a vital part democracies critically depend on active
of any democracy, and gives ordinary people citizens, young people upholding their
the knowledge about our democracy and our rights. They also depend on people
Constitution. The Civic Education is also monitoring the performance of our
known as Democracy Education and it has government and holding political leaders
two components. First component is that it accountable to fulfil their promises and to
provides us knowledge for example is our serve the voters. As young voters, if we
knowledge about our right as an ordinary noticed or see that something is going
people and on the roles and functions of wrong, we can mobilise other in our
government institutions and parliament. This community to raise awareness, change
knowledge empowers us to claim and know policies or ensure that proper
our democratic rights as well as demand implementation of policies were observed.
good democratic governance from our Active citizenship is not only about having
country’s leaders. That means that civic rights, it is also about having democratic
education shows us what we can do to responsibilities. While the state is
protect and support our democracy. responsible for providing basic services, it is
up to the people or even the young ones not
Civic Education is to encourage and
to violate the rights of others.
empower young people to understand their
political environment and to actively However, in the context of political
participate in our democratic processes. debates about the political apathy of young
Young people needs to learn about their people, questions arise about the political
rights to be able to claim them for their own participation of young people and their
benefits or depend them in case someone understanding of policy questions.
wants to take them away. Here in the Discussions about participation are reviewed
in the media, especially, if, on election day, democracy. A high numbers of voters in
young people avoid the ballot box or show election is better for democracy because it
no interest in politics, which is considered to means that our elected leaders have more of
be symptomatic of the crisis of democracy an incentives to be responsive and
and the lack of civic education. At this point, accountable to ordinary people. Remember,
it is necessary to motivate children and part of our responsibility as the young
teenagers to become politically active. The people of the Philippines is to respect and
school, the family and friends are important depend our laws and constitutional values.
factors when it comes to explaining political After all, our participation is a very
behavior. These peer groups can encourage important key feature of any functioning
young people to show a great deal of interest democracy.
in politics, thereby increasing their
willingness to participate politically both in
and out of schools (Schwarzer/Zeglovits References
2009: 327). It is also reasonable to assume
http://sciencev1.orf.at/science/filzmaier/
that the political participation of young
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people depends on social-economic status
(Schultze 2007: 399). https://www.kidcentraltn.com/
In my conclusion, the main
objective of civic education is to educate
students to become mature and capable
citizens. Ultimately, democratic societies
depend on civic education and political
commitment. It is clear that civic education
plays a crucial role in the political culture of
a modern democracy. At this point, the
institution ‘school’ enters into the picture
which is responsible for teaching politics to
children and young people and empowering
them to become critical and conscious
citizens with their own judgment on political
participation.
In essential political right in democracy is
the right to vote, young people are not
obligated to vote and entitled not to vote.
Anyone who decides not to vote does not
mean he/she lose any other rights. However,
it means that you are reducing the total
number of the voting population. If only a
small proportion of voters vote in an
election, this reduces the quality of its
