‘Education apart from being
a human right is a prerequisite for achieving
sustainable development and an essential tool
for good governance’
Statement
by the Ministers of the Environment from the
UNECE
Region on Education for Sustainable Development
(2002)
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) motivates,
equips and involves individuals, and social groups
in reflecting on how we currently live and work,
in making informed decisions and creating ways
to work towards a more sustainable world. ESD
is about learning for change.
Education for Sustainable Development has crystallised
as a result of international agreements and the
global call to actively pursue sustainable development.
Originally perceived as education about sustainability
it is being increasingly recognised, through the
influence of Agenda 21 and the more recent World
Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg
(2002), as more than the dissemination of knowledge.
It is now understood that sustainable development
is a process of adaptive management and systems
thinking, requiring creativity, flexibility and
critical reflection. Through team work –
stakeholder dialogue and decision making - and
working across disciplines, social groups learn
from each other as they consider options and the
consequences of these options to the future.
For IUCN, education for sustainable development
(ESD) is about how to stimulate and guide participation
and learning in achieving a society that develops
sustainably. Critical to education for sustainable
development is learning to access and influence
systems for public participation for decision-making.
‘Education for Sustainable Development
is an emerging but dynamic concept that encompasses
a new vision of education that seeks to empower
people of all ages to assume responsibility for
creating a sustainable future’
(UNESCO 2002 ‘From Rio to JBurg p.1)
Education with the objective of achieving sustainability
varies from previous approaches to environmental
education in that it focuses sharply on developing
closer links among environmental quality, human
equality, human rights and peace and their underlying
political threads. Issues such as food security,
poverty, sustainable tourism, urban quality, women,
fair trade, green consumerism, ecological public
health and waste management as well as those of
climatic change, deforestation, land degradation,
desertification, depletion of natural resources
and loss of biodiversity are primary concerns
for both environmental and development education.
Matters of environmental quality and human development
are central to education for sustainability, It
is based on the premise that we cannot have environmental
quality without human equality.
This process of critical enquiry, encourages
people to explore the complexity and implications
of sustainability as well as the economic, political,
social, cultural, technological and environmental
forces that foster or impede sustainable development.
The United Nations has declared 2005-2014 the
Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development.
Understanding Education
for Sustainable Development
• Focus on future and ability to create
a sustainable future
• Building capacity for change and improved
quality of life
• Less emphasis on awareness-raising and
behaviour changes
• More emphasis on lifestyle choices
• Developing skills and knowledge for
socially critical citizens to deal with complex
issues
• More focus on social, structural and
institutional change (more than personal change)
• More focus on changing mental models
For examples of
action on the ESD Decade, please click here.
ESD Decade Updates can be
seen here. |
