Global Citizenship Education (GCE) offers a powerful message of hope in a time of global uncertainty. At the University of Galway, Dr Brenda Gallagher, Lecturer in the School of Education, is committed to ensuring that GCE is not an optional extra, but a core part of how teachers see themselves and their role in the world.
This work has already led to growing awareness and reflection among student teachers. At the same time, Dr Gallagher openly acknowledges an important challenge: “While there is obviously increased awareness in this area, the majority of these students still struggled to suggest practical ways of seamlessly integrating GCE into their practice on a daily basis.”
However, rather than a barrier, this challenge has become a point of possibility. In response, Brenda and her team developed the Top 10 Tips for Embedding GCE, offering practical, hopeful pathways for turning intention into action. “Our overall goal is to graduate teachers who consider GCE a central component of their professional identity and agency and who have the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to integrate GCE seamlessly into their practice.” These supports align closely with the Global Education Time Teaching and Learning Units, which model how global issues can be meaningfully embedded into everyday classroom practice across subject areas.
GCE equips young people with the understanding, skills and values they need to engage confidently with an interconnected world, helping them to see that positive change is possible — and that they have a role to play in shaping it.
Students from Tullamore College addressing teachers at the GET Youth Action seminar Oct 2025
