Issues and trends in Education for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is commonly understood as education that encourages changes in knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for all. ESD aims to empower and equip current and future generations to meet their needs using a balanced and integrated approach to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The concept of ESD was born from the need for education to address the growing environmental challenges facing the planet. In order to do this, education must change to provide the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that empower learners to contribute to sustainable development. At the same time, education must be strengthened in all agendas, programmes and activities that promote sustainable development. In short, sustainable development must be integrated into education and education must be integrated into sustainable development. ESD is holistic and transformational education and concerns learning content and outcomes, pedagogy and the learning environment (UNESCO, 2014). With regards to learning content such as curricula, the complex sustainability challenges facing societies cut across boundaries and multiple thematic areas. Education must therefore address key issues such as climate change, poverty and sustainable production. ESD promotes the integration of these critical sustainability issues in local and global contexts into the curriculum to prepare learners to understand and respond to the changing world. ESD aims to produce learning outcomes that include core competencies such as critical and systemic thinking, collaborative decision-making, and taking responsibility for present and future generations. In order to deliver such diverse and evolving issues, ESD uses innovative pedagogy, encouraging teaching and learning in an interactive, learner centred way that enables exploratory, action-oriented and transformative learning. Learners are enabled to think critically and systematically develop values and attitudes for a sustainable future. 8 9 Issues and trends in Education for Sustainable Development Issues and trends in Education for Sustainable Development Since traditional single-directional delivery of knowledge is no longer sufficient to inspire learners to take action as responsible citizens, ESD entails rethinking the learning environment, physical and virtual. ESD is not confined to schools but applies to all levels of formal, non-formal and informal education as an integral part of lifelong learning. The learning environment itself must adapt and apply a whole-institution approach to embed the philosophy of sustainable development. Building the capacity of educators and policy support at international, regional, national and local levels will help drive these changes in learning institutions. Empowered youth and local communities interacting with education institutions become key actors in advancing sustainable development. The launch of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) triggered a global movement to reorient education to address the challenges of sustainable development. Building on the achievement of the Decade, stated in the Aichi-Nagoya Declaration on ESD, UNESCO endorsed the Global Action Programme on ESD (GAP) in the 37th session of its General Conference. Acknowledged by UN General Assembly Resolution A/ RES/69/211 and launched at the UNESCO World Conference on ESD in 2014, the GAP aims to scale-up actions and good practices. As the lead agency for the UN Decade and the GAP, UNESCO has a major role, along with its partners, in bringing about key achievements to ensure the principles of ESD are promoted through formal, non-formal and informal education. International recognition of ESD as the key enabler for sustainable development is growing steadily. The role of ESD was recognized in three major UN summits on sustainable development: the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa; and the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro. Other key global agreements such as the Paris Agreement (Article 12) also recognize the importance of ESD. Today, ESD is arguably at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015). The SDGs recognize that all countries must stimulate action in the following key areas - people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership - in order to tackle the global challenges that are crucial for the survival of humanity. Achieving these goals requires a profound transformation in the way we think and act. 8 9 ESD is explicitly mentioned in Target 4.7 of SDG4, which aims to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development and is understood as an important means to achieve all the other 16 SDGs (UNESCO, 2017). In order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the ESD concept and ESD practices, this publication is divided into two parts: Understanding Education for Sustainable Development and Implementing Education for Sustainable Development. The first part provides an overview of how the concept of ESD has evolved over the years with a focus on the key competencies and thematic areas. The second part explores how ESD is implemented in the five Priority Action Areas of the GAP and how efforts are being scaled-up and monitored in the context of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. In compiling this volume, we have deliberately also included, among others, more ‘junior’ researchers on ESD in order to reflect the breadth of ESD discourse. The volume provides, nevertheless, a selective rather than exhaustive view of ESD, which we hope provides clear insight into key elements of the global discussion.