Education for Sustainable Development: Its Interesting History and Paradoxes

Education for Sustainable Development: Its Interesting History and Paradoxes

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a fairly new concept in the area of education, coined in the late 1980s. ESD aims to increase awareness and aid in combating issues in our global society, like climate change, unsustainable use of resources, and inequality. It strives to provide children around the world access to a holistic view of current world crises and set the children up to bring about positive change in the world. 

Throughout ESD’s history, UNESCO played a major role in promoting its importance and advancements in the area. One major step in the process was the creation of UNDESD (UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development) in 2005, making many formal education systems around the world take responsibility for providing ESD. From 2014 to 2019, a new agenda, the Global Action Programme on ESD, was put into effect. 

Now, ESD for 2030 is the new UNESCO plan for improving ESD around the world, focusing on five main areas: advancing policy, transforming learning environments, building capacities of educators, empowering and mobilizing youth, and accelerating local-level action. Plans for years beyond 2030 are also in development, as can be seen from the document titled “Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education”.

Currently, there are numerous researchers trying to advance methods in ESD and measure the effectiveness of ESD. One such research, titled “Building a conceptual framework for an ESD-effective school organization”, published in 2020, proposed a structural framework for evaluating effective ESD practices and environments. The important characteristics and criteria for evaluation identified by the research are as follows:

1. Pluralistic communication: open and direct communication channels for students not only within the school but also with the external environment. 

2. Supportive relations: collaborative working environment amongst students, between other schools, school leaders, and other partners.

3. Democratic decision-making: involvement of both teachers and students in school decisions.

4. Shared vision: a common, school-wide understanding of ESD and the school’s goals.

5. Adaptability: adaptability to internal and external opportunities for change.

6. Collective ESD efficacy: a school’s conviction that efforts will foster a positive change, along with high expectations for student achievement.

Although ESD brings about various benefits, there has been research into the limitations of the current ESD frameworks as proposed by UNESCO. For example, in the research article titled “Education for the future? Critical evaluation of education for sustainable development goals”, the author points out three major issues with current ESD and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): focusing on economic measures like poverty and health issues instead of slowing growth in population and consumption, focusing on western perspectives of education, and being overly anthropocentric. Some potential solutions that the author proposed are the incorporation of ecocentric education, ecological citizenship education, and education for alternative economic models.

While it is important to value the importance of ESD, it should also be taken with a grain of salt. Instead of blindly following and simply taking action for sustainable development, maybe we should all critically evaluate the SDGs for their benefits and shortcomings, in order to obtain a brighter future for the Earth.  

References

Kopnina, H. (2020). Education for the future? Critical Evaluation of Education for Sustainable Development Goals. The Journal of Environmental Education, 51(4), 280–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2019.1710444

Verhelst, D., Vanhoof, J., Boeve-de Pauw, J., & Van Petegem, P. (2020). Building a conceptual framework for an ESD-effective school organization. The Journal of Environmental Education, 51(6), 400–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2020.1797615

What you need to know about education for sustainable development. UNESCO.org. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://www.unesco.org/en/education-sustainable-development/need-know