Education for Sustainable Development

Key Messages

Introduction
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) gives children, youth and adults the knowledge, information and tools they
need to make smart decisions to create a sustainable future for all. It is the collective contribution of the worlds education
and learning systems (formal, informal and non- formal) including preschool to higher education, the worlds public
awareness and information sharing systems, and the worlds public and private sectors training systems.

ESD focuses on concerted activities in five major spheres:

1. Access and retention in quality education: Supportive of the traditional approach while not being limited to the
methods of Education for All, this emphasis addresses the millions of under-educated youth and adults who are
unemployable or in need of continuing education.
2. Reorienting the current formal education systems: There is an immediate need to shift our education systems from
the current underlying focus on traditional development to one focusing on sustainable development. The engagement of
higher education is particularly necessary.
3. Engaging and building public awareness and understanding: We need to engage formal, non-formal and informal
education systems to build an informed society that not only understands the need for wise reform, but also recognizes
current or emerging unsustainable policy and practice.
4. Training and re-orienting current practice in all sectors of society: One aspect is to re-train the operators in
various industries to achieve sustainability; the other is to address deep-seated attitudes and perspectives to social,
economic and environmental issues in order to facilitate future training and professional growth.
5. Youth and their Empowerment as key stakeholder for sustainable development pathways We are experiencing a
global crisis of youth disempowerment and disengagement In part, this is due to the alienation of youth in decision making
including the role of education in promoting that civic and global engagement skills and peer networks on important issues
that affect them including skills, jobs, climatic change, and the rapid means in which technology connecting them to
express that frustration..

Background: the Development and Implementation of ESD
A Widespread ESD Concern
Among the forty issues in Agenda 21, only ESD has been given a UN Decade status.
However, ESD and its major elements education, public awareness and training have not been featured as
valuable assets in the post-Rio discussion. Even Ministries of Education were not engaged.
Developing new capacity and re-orienting existing education systems require widespread re-deployment of human and
financial resources, and therefore cannot happen without the active engagement of leaders at all levels as integral
stakeholders and partners.

Good News
In spite of many lost years and opportunities, there have still been reports of success. The recent report on the UN
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) compiled by UNESCO has thousands of ESD initiatives
being reported by countries worldwide. Countries, regions, cities, and institutional systems that have launched major
systemic ESD change have also found marked improvement in the quality of their program. In addition, new research is
underway to further explore the synergy between ESD and perceived quality education.

Highlights: The Bonn Conference on ESD in 2009 as a major turning point
Higher education proceeding rapidly to embed sustainability in the curricula
NGOs taking the lead: about 120 cities and regions have research and
implementation of ESD going on through multi-stakeholder initiatives
Hundreds of teacher education institutions in 79 countries re-orienting
teacher education to address sustainability
Academies paying attention to the re-orienting of education systems by
involving multi-stakeholders from all levels

Summary: The major elements inherent in ESD education, public awareness and training are enormous potential
agents of capacity building and societal change. While they have been working largely in isolation to address equity and
sustainability, much more could be done. There is a need for widespread systematic engagement among all ministries,
civil society and the private sector.


Main points for framing Dakar conference and the post-2015 agenda:

1. Quality Education

Education planning
and stakeholders
ESD is focused on inclusivity and equality in and through education. Sustainability and
Inclusivity as principles must be mainstreamed in the education system - policies and
laws, teaching and learning, learning environment, and teacher education and other
education personal
ESD focus is on blurring the grey lines between Formal Non-Formal and Informal
Education and its focus is on learning outcomes for all.
Disaster risk and risk management approaches must inform all education planning and
programmes.
The process of developing content education through multi- stakeholder processes
should involve youth and children, teachers, governments, communities, civil society
organizations, and the business community all who have important stake in it. It should
be designed with three levels including competencies at the local, national and global
including now for global citizenship.
Learning outcomes are stunted when it disconnected from the local and national and
global environmental issues, humanities and geography.
Teachers are powerful actors and partners with youth and children in the design of
designing locally relevant content in curricula and interpretening national and global
competencies into suitable lesson plans.
Flexible principled based curricula and local content is key for ESD
Equity and Social
Justice
Education should impart / teach the differences between unsustainable growth and
sustainable development and focus on the most marginalized in society to be equitable.
Education must be developed based on knowledge content that include traditional or
local knowledge, national and global competencies and learning outcomes to ensure
equal access for all.
Quality formal education and training must be prioritized as a basic human right, while
non-formal and informal education should be promoted to bring about social learning and
cultural changes.
Equity is also linked to what knowledge we chose to teach and which culture and class,
or race we choose to represent as dominate.
Education
Governance
Achieving multi-sector planning and broad participation around ESD is a prerequisite for
sustainable development.
ESD contributes to good governance by building community and youth capacities to
participate in education and community and that demands transparency, accountability
and broad participation.
Information technologies can help with improving education governance for ESD.
Relevant Education
for All
ESD explores and embraces global, regional and local values and ethics in and through
education.
The planning of ESD must include multiple stakeholders, especially local community
actors including parents, students and teachers.
ESD must go beyond changes to infrastructure to address vision, policy, curricular
delivery, assessment, and community engagement.
Roles of Higher
Education
Key action: developing teacher training modules and certifications for teachers in ESD.
Higher education institutions must embed core concepts of sustainability in all disciplines.
Courses on indigenous culture and language must be included in or for imparting
curricula.
Universities are critical partners in ESD and for active youth engagement and
organization around ESD












2. Environmental Sustainability

Youth as a Big
Stake
Youth represent 55% of the population in many countries, and therefore should be
ensured a seat as a partner at the table.
ESD gives the youth necessary knowledge and skills to successfully take responsibilities
as global citizens.
Youth have agency and are part of the solution... Let them innovate, monitor the local
environment and develop sustainable technologies and solutions for schools and
community development.
Youth must be enabled to participate effectively to address the widespread crisis of youth
disempowerment in part due to perpetually outdated and irrelevant education (especially
for 21 century) and or lack of access to education of quality. Youth must be given a
platform to participate and to weigh in on the global development agenda as well as to
constructively play a role in solving community and development problems. Youth need a
need a seat at the table which requires enablers including ESD. Universities and
schools and the UN is key to this outstanding need for youth organization at the
community, regional and global level!!
Education and
Sustainability
Sustainable development and mind set (ideology) requires multi-stakeholder planning
processes with education ministers and empowered teachers as a fundamental actor for
education services provision.
Teaching sustainability begins with early childhood experiential learning and interactions
with nature that progress to increasingly more complex content throughout.
Sustainable development will require a disaster risk management approach in and
through education.
Innovation and sustainable technologies is at the core of education for sustainable
development.
ESD is the pathway to a more sustainable future for all and individual well-being the
very goal of education.
ESD and Innovation
for sustainability
Accelerated climate change requires relevant learning for all ESD is education for
adaptation.
ESD must focus on multi-stakeholder participation and start from natural life systems.
The recognition of the oneness of the world is indispensable.
ESD is concerned with the ethical foundation of innovation and entrepreneurship.
ESD and Resilience
Education must impart knowledge and skills that instrumental ly support climate change
adaptation and resilience, in particular through local knowledge and practices.
ESD engages leaders across sectors in the new economy.
ESD and
Ecosystem
Services -Poverty
and Environment
PE
There will not be Sustainable Land and Water Management without a broad education
change strategy that includes formal, non formal and informal learning systems and
approaches for sustainable change in the destructive environmental practices and to
achieve the participatory decision making processes around the environment cost-
benefits. PE requires a consideration of capacity strengthening for environmental
sustainability at three levels - individual, organizational and institutional... ESD is key.