Education for sustainable development has four major thrusts.
- Promotion and improvement of Basic Education: Access to basic education remains a problem for many, especially girls and illiterate adults. The quality of basic education must improve to focus on imparting knowledge, skills, values and perspectives throughout a lifetime that encourage and support citizens to lead sustainable lives.
- Reorienting Existing Education Programmes: Rethinking and revising education from nursery school through university to include more principles, knowledge, skills, perspectives and values related to sustainability in each of the three realms – social, environmental, and economic – is important to our current and future societies. This should be done in a holistic and interdisciplinary manner. The best chance of success of education for sustainable development lies not in a separate programme but in embedding its vision within other initiatives.
- Developing Public Awareness and Understanding of Sustainability: To make progress towards more sustainable societies requires a population that is aware of the goals of sustainability and has the knowledge and the skills to contribute towards those goals. Informed citizenry and knowledgeable consumers can help communities and governments enact sustainability measures and move towards more sustainable societies.
- Training: All sectors of the workforce can contribute to local, regional and national sustainability. The development of specialized training programmes to ensure that all sectors of the workforce have the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their work in a sustainable manner has been identified as a critical component of education for sustainable development.
Several key themes are critical priorities for planning programmes and activities in support of the Decade, and need to be kept in mind while elaborating the Implementation Scheme. Among the more important are biodiversity, fresh water management, environmental conservation and protection, rural transformation, health promotion, sustainable production and consumption, human rights, peace and international understanding, and the cross-cutting themes of poverty alleviation and gender equality. Attempts should be made to use Information and Communication Technology in the service of ESD even in very traditional learning situations. Actions that will be in the implementation scheme will be related to the educational aspects of topics, issues, and problems that are relevant to sustainable development.
Source: UNESCO
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