PACER for PEACE, a resource for teachers, encourages students visiting Canberra on the PACER subsidy to think critically and creatively about an essential ingredient in democracy — peace.
The guide (download) suggests ways to enrich students’ understanding of peace, offers new places to explore, and encourages young people to see themselves as agents of change.
The federal PACER (Parliamentary and Civics Education Rebate) program subsidises Australian schools to visit Canberra’s national institutions and learn more about democracy and citizenship.
PACER for PEACE is produced by Medical Association for Prevention of War Australia.
Through a series of suggested questions for students, the PACER for PEACE guide for teachers encourages students to see peace not just as the absence of war, but as a more positive quality involving justice, equality, understanding, and care for each other - and as something we can build together.
The emphasis is on the Australian War Memorial but the guide looks also at other institutions in the national capital. Some of the questions on the Memorial are:
> Whose stories are told at the Memorial, and whose stories are missing?
> Why have our wars occurred?
> Is fighting wars the most important thing Australia has done?
Under the first of those questions, there is this:
> Does the Memorial tell us stories about the “Frontier Wars”, in which many tens of thousands of Australia’s First Nations people were killed by British colonial settlers? If not, do you think this is strange, and do you think they should? If you are of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background, how did you feel during your AWM visit?
Picture credit: PACER for PEACE launch, Canberra, 20 November 2025 (supplied)
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