ISSUE 38: JULY–AUGUST 2005
network of research and training centres/programmes
FRONT PAGE | ARCHIVE |
Conference focuses on education for sustainable development
The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development was officially launched in the Asia-Pacific region at a conference on Sustaining the Future – Globalization and Education for Sustainable Development co-organised by UN University and UNESCO in Nagoya June 28-29.
The conference, the fourth in a series on the theme of globalization, attracted academics, policymakers and experts from the non-government sector to discuss the role of education in preparing people to contribute to sustainable development, peace and security. Plenary presentations and discussions on the first day of the conference were followed by a workshop on the roles of e-learning, regional initiatives, and higher education in Education for Sustainable Development (EfSD).
Speakers stressed the importance of reorienting both formal and informal education towards fostering individual and collective responsibility, respect for diversity and independent and critical thinking. This entails moving from a clear distinction and hierarchy between the roles of teachers and students to an approach where teachers and students both see themselves as learners, studying together how to achieve economic and social development without destroying the environment or cultural diversity. In practice, curricula at every level of education and for every subject will need to be redesigned around the requirements of sustainable development to illustrate how each topic and every action links to issues of sustainability.
The conference closed with the official launch of seven Regional Centres of Expertise on EfSD, groups of organizations which will play a crucial role in promoting sustainable development education at the local level by developing innovative collaborations among institutes of higher education, primary and secondary educational systems, local governments and other regional stakeholders. The RCEs are located in the Pacific, South-East Asia, northern and southern Europe and North America. More RCEs will be established in the future.
At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, UNU initiated the Ubuntu Alliance, an international group of research and higher education institutions and organizations dedicated to promoting EfSD. Within UNU, UNU Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) has developed a work programme on ESD, in collaboration with UNESCO, that targets both education and policy practitioners.
The IAS work aims to improve the quality of education by integrating knowledge on sustainability into educational curricula and practices at all levels of education and to increase the capacity of the public and political decision-makers in particular to promote sustainable development by incorporating its components into national development planning and implementation.
© 2005 United Nations University