The United Nations convention on the rights of the child has failed children, according to Trocaire, joint organisers of a recent Dublin conference on children's rights. The annually organised conference, now in its fourth year, provides a forum to explore how children's rights can be promoted both in the classroom and the wider world.

Ten years after the convention was adopted, "it has not made any real or lasting difference to the lives of many children living in the world today," says Father Julian Oyales, a human-rights activist from Guatemala who spoke at the conference. The section in the convention which deals with rights to "participation" is "apparently the most problematic" in Ireland, says Derry Hannam, a researcher on democratic education at the University of Birmingham. However, he adds, the new Education Bill has potential. Under the Bill, schools are obliged to encourage post-primary students to establish a student council. As well as giving them a role in their education, this chance to participate

may teach young people the necessary "skills, attitudes and values" to be citizens in a democratic society when they leave school. "Student councillors" from two Dublin-based schools spoke at the conference about their experience - notably the effect being on a council had on their confidence. In fact, the mere idea of addressing a conference full of teachers would have been far too intimidating before they got involved in the school council, they said.

While all this new-found assertiveness may be marvellous for them when they go out into the big bad world, parents might baulk at the prospect of placard-wielding children at the breakfast table asserting their right to demonstrate against Weetabix.

"Parents want what's best for their kids," Hannam says. "They want them to be happy and successful. Giving them the chance to have a say in how their school is run, and the opportunity to have their views taken seriously, makes them happier and more successful. "Students involved in school councils develop better communication skills, and one of the spin-off effects of this is less fighting at home. The impact on family life has been overwhelmingly shown to be a positive one."

The impact on school life is also very encouraging, Hannam says. "Schools have been completely turned around by the use of councils - improvements can be seen in both the physical and psychological environment. New decorations, footpaths and plants appear, as do new kinds of relationships between students and students, and students and adults. "By adults, I mean not only the teachers, but the growing number of members of the community who use the school as a learning resource."

School councils foster a more open environment in schools which, he says, leads to less bullying. "The studious are no longer teased for actually enjoying some school work, and if they are, they have a means of doing something about it. Instructing children that they must be able to say `no' to potential abusers, while denying them serious opportunities for debate and decision-making in most of their school life, seems a little contradictory."

Hannam has been actively involved in developing a more democratic school system since he first worked as a teacher in what he describes as "the heady days of 1968". Through his experience as a teacher he has seen the benefits of moving away from "the traditional system of the teacher at the top lecturing the students, towards a more collaborative system", he says. "Transition Year seems to be a good example of a more collective learning process. Having heard feedback from a few students, it also seems that this learning environment affects their thinking of themselves as potent communicators."

However, teaching students the tenets of democracy is not the same thing as teaching them the skills to participate in a democratic society, he says. He refers to a "fascinating and depressing" study carried out in 1995 on the role of civics in British schools, in which a 15-year-old boy said: "It's not that I haven't learnt much. It's just that I don't really understand what I've learnt."

According to Hannam, "the opinions of the students represent the single most neglected source of potential data for school improvement."

The National Parents Council (Primary) has run a pilot project on pupil participation, in the context of codes of behaviour. Anne Colgan, manager of the "Parent Programme" with the NPC

, explains: "The project we ran involved parents, teachers, and pupils working together. Initially some of the parents and teachers were a bit anxious about the ability of primary pupils to co-operate in something like this. But in the end they were all very impressed by the views of the pupils and by how well they could participate.

"We would feel involving pupils in the operation of the school is the way forward for the future. It teaches them to take responsibility for themselves and for the climate in the classroom."

Realistically it will probably be quite a slow haul forward, according to Hannam. "Changing schools in the direction of democracy is not easy. Fortunately there are enough successful examples for us to conclude that the task is not impossible."