Anti-rights narratives, misinformation, disinformation and polarised debate in education are increasingly encountered by educators in classrooms and wider school communities. The responsibility for responding cannot rest with individual teachers alone.

In Malta, the Human Rights Directorate is hosting three full-day training sessions from 28 to 30 October for school and college leadership and managerial staff. Based on Tool 2:  Countering Anti-Rights Discourse in Education, of the Inclusive Education Toolkit jointly developed by the Council of Europe and IGLYO, the programme sees participants working with selected elements of the tool through an experiential and practice-oriented methodology and testing classroom practices to respond to misinformation, disinformation and anti-rights narratives and subsequently identify the leadership conditions needed to use these practices safely and confidently.

The participation of Minister for Equality and Civil Rights, Rosianne Cutajar, in one the sessions highlights the importance of engaging leadership in creating an enabling environment for educators to address these issues. This pilot training is also grounded in the realities of the Maltese education system, recognising that every school or sector operates identically.

Each session will accommodate from 10 to 20 participants, for a total of 50 people trained. Feedback from participants and facilitators will inform the further development of the training materials and approach. The full Inclusive Education Toolkit will be launched on the 20 November at the 2026 European Education and Skills Summit in Brussels. Come back for further information!

The organisation of the training is supported by the Council of Europe under the European Union/Council of Europe joint project “Combating Anti-LGBTIQ Violence and Hate Speech, and Strengthening Awareness and Fact-based Narratives about LGBTIQ People.”