





























Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2011 Vol 2 Issue 1 Page 5-6 

 

5 
 

 
UNESCO Core Curriculum and Teaching Resources 
 
 

Darryl Macer PhD 
Regional Advisor, Regional Unit for Social and Human Science in Asia and the Pacific, 
Bangkok, Thailand 
Email: d.macer@unesco.org 
 
 
The task of a teacher includes empowering their student to develop their maturity as 
individuals as well as being able to cooperative members of changing societies. Student 
need to be prepared so they are able to apply knowledge to make good decisions during 
their life. Basic to fulfilling many tasks, teachers themselves need to be in the right situation. 
How can we train teachers and sustain their motivation to take upon this sacred vocation? 
How can create communities that tolerate these goals?  
 
This paper will look at the roles and challenges for teachers and institutions, with some 
comparisons between countries and trends. There will be examples of some training 
strategies and methods being used in the multidisciplinary area of bioethics. Bioethics is 
looking at ethical issue relating to life science and technology, or could even be called the 
love of life. Ethics is a concept balancing benefits and risks of choice and decisions. The 
underlying heritage of ethics can be seen in all cultures, religions, and in ancient writings 
around the world. The turbulent times of today have challenged some of the traditional 
structures in the relationships between human beings within their society, with nature and 
God. How can we empower teachers to make a special contribution in the wider context of 
constructing a mature society. Mature means a person, or a society that can balance the 
benefits and risk of alternative options, and make well considered decisions, and talk about 
it. 
 
There are at least four strategies that thinking person need to cope with the turbulent times. 
 
1. Descriptive ethics to enable people to accurately assess the situation. People need to 
understand the way they and other people view life, their moral interactions and 
responsibilities with other in their life. 
 
2. Prescriptive ethics is to tell others what is ethically good and bad, or what principles are 
the most important in making such decisions. It may also be to say something or someone  
 
 
has rights, and others have duties to them. It is a basic for sound policy making, and law, and 
empowering people to make decision in their life.  
 
3. Interactive ethics is decision and debate between people, groups within society, and 
communities. Such dialogue skills are necessary to live harmoniously with others. The 
tensions in turbulent times are even more stretched yet we must continue to teach people to 
get along, and empower teachers to interact across perceived boundaries of discipline, 
culture, religion and ideology. 
 
4. Practicality is essential if teachers are expected to continue teaching, and students will 
continue their interest in the matter.  
 
This paper will gives some examples of teaching critical thinking through both environmental 
and medical ethics issues. Critical thinking is essential for empowering person to cope with 
changing times.  How do we promote the creation of ideas, and individuality in an era of 



Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2011 Vol 2 Issue 1 Page 5-6 

 

6 
 

globalization?  The rapid progress of technology has led to challenges in the way that we 
live. The systems and the patterns that are seen in the relationships between patients, 
families, health professionals, and the society in general changed. Appropriate education 
requires teachers to apply methods and resources appropriately and to develop the decision 
making ability in students, teachers and policy makers so our society can evolve with the 
demands of the times.   
 
The UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum sets out to introduce the bioethical principles of   
the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights to university students. Bioethics 
teaching has not introduced in many universities in many countries. The UNESCO Core 
Curriculum can provide an incentive to start introducing such teaching. Its contents are 
based on the principles adopted in UNESCO. It therefore does not impose model or specific 
view of bioethics, but articulate ethical principles that are shared by scientific experts, policy-
makers and health professionals from various countries with different cultural, historical and 
religious backgrounds. 
 
However, the core curriculum should not be treated as a comprehensive curriculum in 
bioethics. It is recognized that the content of the core curriculum does not necessarily cover 
all aspects of bioethics. Traditional issues that have not been included could be incorporated 
as examples that are pertinent to one or several of the Declaration’s principles within the 
curriculum’s framework. 
 
We are working with institutions that have varying levels of experience with bioethics 
education, some of them at the early stage to introduce new bioethics courses, while others, 
are reviewing their curricula with a view to enriching it from cultural perspectives, taking into 
account the UNESCO Bioethics Core Curriculum. Also we are gathering feedback from 
bioethics education efforts, and examining existing bioethics curriculum developed at 
national and international level, so to decide either to follow transdisciplinary curricula across 
medical, environmental and science ethics or independent curricula specific for each 
discipline. 
 
 
 

 


