Why CMS Hosts the Iconic Conference of Chief Justices: The Answer is Global Citizenship Education
This November, City Montessori School (CMS), Lucknow, will host the 26th International Conference of Chief Justices of the World (ICCJW) from 19th to 24th November 2025. The event will unite Honourable Chief Justices, Judges, Heads of States/Governments and Thought Leaders to reflect on the theme “A New Look at the United Nations and its Charter”. This extraordinary event will bring together our CMS students once again for the 26th year running to engage directly with international leaders, broadening their understanding of the need for strengthening just global governance architectures that can turn promises into protection and rights into reality.
The conference calls for creating a climate of opinion in favour of enforceable international law with a view to alleviating armed conflicts, tackling environmental crises, and addressing other supranational issues facing humanity. So far, more than 2 lakh CMS students have been engaged, and 1520 Honourable Chief Justices, Judges, and Heads of States/Governments have attended, as well as 142 countries have been represented across the 25 years of this glorious, history-making annual flagship CMS event founded by our revered Founder, the late Dr Jagdish Gandhi.
The 80th birthday of the United Nations was celebrated in October this year, not only by world leaders on the international stage but also at several schools, where junior and senior students researched and discussed aspects of global citizenship and the values underpinning it. Global citizenship was initially considered an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms and a contested area. People typically take pride in nationalism and see the inculcation of loyalty to one’s nation as conflicting with a possibly wider loyalty to the world as a whole. However, more lately, there has been a growing realisation that our destinies are inextricably bound together, that the earth is one common homeland. The Covid-19 crisis has underlined our interdependencies and highlighted that we are only as strong as the weakest link.
The emphasis on global citizenship at the UN 80 celebrations reminded me of Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s motto of ‘Jai Jagat’ propounded in 1950s India, and it is sweet to recollect that the idea of global citizenship was already inherent in the sagacious Indian philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam. The sense that these ancient Indian values were the right ethos for today’s world was already strengthened when the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – adopted by all world leaders at the UN in 2015 – included ‘global citizenship education’ as an important target within its Education Goal (Goal 4).
The inexorable movement towards global citizenship education (GCE) is also seen in the creation of university courses in development education and in the inclusion of GCE in national documents such as India’s new National Education Policy 2020, which includes GCE as an important goal for education in its paragraphs 4.24, 6.20 and 11.8.
The Sustainable Development Goal on education (Goal 4) has seven target outcomes, and one of these seven is ‘Knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development’. This target states: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.
The progress of a country towards this goal shall be measured by the following indicator: Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development, including gender equality and human rights, are mainstreamed at all levels in: (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment. Attaining this goal is very important for the collective life and well-being of all who dwell on the planet.
By the end of this year’s conference, about 10,000 CMS students would have been given the unique, priceless and enriching opportunity to hear (and interact with) international legal dignitaries from 51 countries on topics related to global governance for a better future for children. Their participation will mean that our students are not passive bystanders and mute spectators of affairs but, rather, will be actively, intellectually, and emotionally engaged in the most salient affairs of our age, which will make them the future-ready, empathetic, and informed leaders of tomorrow. This conference brings together some of the most eminent people of the world to engage and be accountable to some of the least sought-after people of the world—the children, the non-voters in whose name the future will be shaped.
The issues they hear about and discuss in the curated parallel discussion will be — the review of the UN Charter, how to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and how to harness the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of rapidly evolving technologies (AI, machine learning, and robots) that are raising governance, legal, and moral issues related to surveillance, social media, fake news, and the replacement of unskilled jobs by technologies.
Students will also learn that – to prepare them to thrive in such a world – education needs to create critical-thinking and problem-solving skills in young people, skills that cannot be replaced by technology. This is a direction in which CMS education has securely turned since 2021-22, and which we are committed to steadfastly holding on to. This is also consistent with the National Education Policy (NEP, 2020).
Going forward, it should be the effort of schools to mainstream education for global citizenship and sustainable development (including gender equality and human rights) in our school curricula, teacher training and student assessment. For this to happen, it would be needed to include GCE in school curricula and in exam boards’ syllabuses and exam papers. Going forward, much thought needs to go into how we can teach young people and adults respect for diversity, justice, empathy, compassion and abandoning prejudices – values that are at the heart of global citizenship. How can schools and universities best inculcate a concern for and engagement with contemporary global issues, such as responsible climate/environmental behaviour? How to develop a concern for sustainable development and all that it implies, including reduced materialism and consumerism, sacrificing consumption, reducing needs, and understanding obligations and duties rather than merely emphasising rights. We need this to create a better world. It’s a long road, but the journey needs to start.
This is an adapted version of an article published in the Hindustan Times (Lucknow edition) on 6th December 2020, and is authored by Prof. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, Manager, City Montessori School, Lucknow.