Education is the main agent of transformation towards sustainable development, increasing the capacities of people to transform their visions of society into reality. Education not only provides scientific and technical skills, but also provides the motivation and social support to seek and apply them. For this reason, society must be deeply concerned that much of today’s education falls far short of what is required. When we say this, it reflects the very needs of cultures that allow everyone to become responsible for quality improvement.
Improving the quality and disclosure of education and reorienting its objectives to recognize the importance of sustainable development must be among the main priorities of society. It is not that we speak only of the environment but also of all the components of life.
Therefore, we need to clarify the concept of education for sustainable development. It was a great challenge for educators during the last decade. The meanings of sustainable development in educational structures, the appropriate balance of peace, human rights, citizenship, social equity, ecological and development issues in already overloaded curricula, and ways of integrating the humanities, social sciences and arts in what was up. -Until now it has been seen and practiced as a branch of science education.
Some argued that educating for sustainable development risked programming, while others questioned whether asking schools to take the lead in the transition to sustainable development was asking teachers too much.
These debates were compounded by the desire of many effective environmental NGOs to contribute to educational planning without the necessary understanding of how education systems work, how educational change and innovation occurs, and relevant curriculum development, professional development, and education. instructional values. Not realizing that effective educational change takes time, others criticized governments for not acting more quickly.
Consequently, many international, regional and national initiatives have contributed to a broadened and refined understanding of the meaning of education for sustainable development. For example, Education International, the world’s leading umbrella group of teachers’ unions and associations, has issued a declaration and action plan to promote sustainable development through education.
A common agenda in all of them is the need for an integrated approach through which all communities, government entities, collaborate in developing a shared understanding and commitment to education policies, strategies and programs for sustainable development.
Actively promote the integration of education in sustainable development in the local community
In addition, many individual governments have established committees, panels, advisory councils, and curriculum development projects to discuss education for sustainable development, develop appropriate policies and support structures, programs, and resources, and fund local initiatives.
In fact, the roots of education for sustainable development are firmly planted in the environmental education efforts of such groups. Along with global education, development education, peace education, citizenship education, human rights education, and multicultural and anti-racist education that have been important, environmental education has been particularly important. In its brief history of thirty years, contemporary environmental education has constantly strived towards goals and results similar and comparable to those inherent in the concept of sustainability.
A new vision for education
These numerous initiatives illustrate that the international community now firmly believes that we must foster, through education, the values, behavior and lifestyles necessary for a sustainable future. Education for sustainable development has come to be seen as a process of learning to make decisions that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology, and social well-being of all communities. Developing the capacity for such future-oriented thinking is a key task of education.
This represents a new vision of education, a vision that helps students better understand the world in which they live, addressing the complexity and interconnectedness of problems such as poverty, wasteful consumption, environmental degradation, urban blight, population growth, gender inequality, health, conflict and the violation of human rights that threaten our future. This vision of education emphasizes a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to developing the knowledge and skills necessary for a sustainable future, as well as changes in values, behavior and lifestyles. This requires us to reorient education systems, policies and practices to empower everyone, young and old, to make decisions and act in culturally appropriate and locally relevant ways to correct the problems that threaten our common future. Therefore, we must think globally and act locally. In this way, people of all ages can be empowered to develop and evaluate alternative visions of a sustainable future and fulfill these visions by working creatively with others.
The pursuit of sustainable development through education requires that educators:
• Place an ethic to live sustainably, based on principles of social justice, democracy, peace and ecological integrity, at the center of society’s concerns.
• Promotes a meeting of disciplines, a linking of knowledge and experience, to create more integrated and contextualized understandings.
• Encourage lifelong learning, starting from the beginning of life and anchored in life, based on a passion for a radical transformation of the moral character of society.
• Fully develop the potential of all human beings throughout their lives so that they can achieve self-realization and full self-expression with the collective achievement of a viable future.
• Value aesthetics, the creative use of imagination, openness to risk and flexibility, and the willingness to explore new options.
• Foster new alliances between the State and civil society in the promotion of citizen liberation and the practice of democratic principles.
• Mobilize society in an intense effort to eliminate poverty and all forms of violence and injustice.
• Foster commitment to values for peace in such a way as to promote the creation of new lifestyles and life patterns.
• Identify and pursue new human projects in the context of local sustainability within an earthly fulfillment and personal and community awareness of global responsibility.
• Create a realistic hope in which the possibility of change and the real desire for change are accompanied by a rigorous and active participation in change, at the right time, in favor of a sustainable future for all.
These responsibilities emphasize the key role of educators as ambassadors of change. There are more than 60 million teachers in the world, and each one is a key ambassador for bringing about the lifestyle and systems changes we need. But, education is not limited to the classrooms of formal education. As an approach to social learning, education for sustainable development also encompasses the wide range of learning activities in basic and post-basic education, technical and vocational training and tertiary education, and both non-formal and informal learning for youth and adults. within their families and workplaces and in the wider community. This means that we all have important roles to play as ‘learners’ and ‘teachers’ in advancing sustainable development.
key lessons
Deciding how education should contribute to sustainable development is an important task. In making decisions about which approaches to education will be locally relevant and culturally appropriate, countries, educational institutions and their communities can take into account the following key lessons learned from the discussion and debate on education and sustainable development during the last decade.
• Education for sustainable development should explore the economic, political and social implications of sustainability by encouraging students to critically reflect on their own areas of the world, identify non-viable elements in their own lives and explore the tensions between conflicting goals. Development strategies tailored to the particular circumstances of diverse cultures in pursuit of shared development goals will be crucial. Educational approaches must take into account the experiences of indigenous cultures and minorities, recognizing and facilitating their original and significant contributions to the process of sustainable development.
• The movement towards sustainable development depends more on the development of our moral sensibilities than on the growth of our scientific understanding, important as this is. Education for sustainable development cannot deal only with disciplines that improve our understanding of nature, despite its undoubted value. Success in the fight for sustainable development requires an approach to education that strengthens our commitment in support of other values, especially justice and equity, and the awareness that we share a common destiny with others.
• Ethical values are the main factor of social consistency and, at the same time, the most effective agent of change and transformation. Ultimately, sustainability will depend on changes in behavior and lifestyles, changes that must be motivated by a change in values and rooted in the cultural and moral precepts on which the behavior is based. Without such change, even the smartest legislation, the cleanest technology, the most sophisticated research will fail to guide society towards the long-term goal of sustainability.
• Changes in lifestyle must be accompanied by the development of an ethical conscience, whereby the inhabitants of rich countries discover in their cultures the source of a new and active solidarity, which will make it possible to eradicate the widespread poverty that now plagues the 80 % of the world population, as well as environmental degradation and other problems related to it.
• Ethical values are formed through education, in the broadest sense of the term. Education is also essential to enable people to use their ethical values to make informed and ethical decisions. Fundamental social changes, such as those required to move toward sustainability, occur because people feel an ethical imperative to change or because leaders have the political will to lead in that direction and feel that people will follow.