Summer 2005

Education for sustainability

A decade for progress

The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development has provided the backdrop for unprecedented levels of interest in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) both in Australia and overseas. The question is how to make the most of these opportunities and make education for sustainable development a reality in all our schools. Daniella Tilbury proposes that monitoring progress during the decade may help provide answers to this question.

Addressing sustainability requires changing the way we think, live and work. This is a big challenge. It is not something we can do as an extra-curricular activity in our schools or fit in when we have the time or inclination during our busy lives. In fact, the enormity of the task even deters many people. However, the benefits to education and the quality of life of our students can be enormous.

This is recognised in significant documents such as Environmental Education for a Sustainable Future, the National Action Plan produced by Environment Australia in 2000, and the recently released Educating for a Sustainable Future: A National Environmental Education Statement for Australian Schools. These national documents support champions undertaking work in this learning area but the fact is that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is still not common practice within our schools.

So why should teachers and educators engage with ESD given the various competing interests in our curriculum? Perhaps the strongest argument comes from the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002. It highlighted how current actions are leading to environmental degradation, poor quality of life and associated human suffering. The world leaders attending the Summit not only confirmed the importance of education in addressing these concerns but also recommended the UN consider adopting a decade of education for sustainable development. A few months later, the UN General Assembly declared the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014).

It is hoped that the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) will provide a platform for extending learning experiences in this area and opportunities for all students to learn about sustainability.

What does education for sustainability mean?

In essence, ESD is about learning for change. Originally perceived as education about sustainability, it is being increasingly recognised that this process goes beyond learning knowledge or concepts. It motivates and involves children and adults in making informed decisions for a more sustainable world.

ESD is not confined to educating people about ecology nor is it only about educating people for economic development. It is a process which promotes an integrated assessment of economic goals, social needs and ecological responsibility.

There are key features associated with the process of ESD which encourage learners to explore its complexity. The literature argues that learning for sustainable development requires:

• a focus on the future that goes beyond focusing on how to problem-solve the way out of our current situation
• more emphasis on participatory and citizen action and less on science and technology solutions
• seeing people as agents of change rather than as the problem
• more emphasis on critical reflection and clarifying values rather than awareness-raising approaches
• a focus on how individuals influence change within a school or community, not just on individual environmental actions
• more focus on changing mental models that influence thinking rather than solely changing individual attitudes.

Education for sustainable development has implications not only for what we learn but also how we learn.

How do we make education for sustainable development a reality?

Australian schools have only recently embraced the idea of ESD. Significant investment in the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative is reinforcing sustainability ideas in schools and allowing teachers to explore its relevance to learning, the curriculum and educational management. More initiatives such as these are required to sow the seeds within our current education systems, and to challenge dominant ways of thinking and acting which are costing us the earth and our future quality of life.

A key priority for the decade identified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is to ‘reorient existing education towards sustainable development’. This means that simply increasing environmental literacy through our teaching is not enough. Australia has one of the highest per capita rates of consumption and leaves one of the deepest ecological footprints. There is a need to help learners see the big picture. That is possibly the greatest challenge.

The UNESCO Decade Implementation Scheme released in August 2005 stresses that ESD should not be equated with environmental education. It should, however, encompass environmental education, setting it in the broader context of such socio-cultural issues as equity, poverty, democracy and quality of life. UNESCO also argues that sustainability must be integrated across curriculum subjects and cannot, because of its scope, be taught as a discrete discipline.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN, formerly the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) argues that ‘The future of ESD will depend on how the concept is perceived in the next few years. If ESD is seen as yet another isolated social issue to be squeezed into the curriculum, or yet another topic to be given as an elective, then little progress will be made.’

Providing more opportunities for teacher education in ESD is critical, particularly for those involved with early childhood education, the fundamental years for child development in this area.

How can we monitor progress?

How will anyone know if the DESD is actually making any difference and just what that difference is? The draft scheme prepared by UNESCO says an initiative as long and as complex as the DESD must, right from the start, put in place adequate monitoring processes. This means implementing relevant and measurable indicators at every level—local, national, regional and international—and for each initiative and program. This will be no easy task.

The results of such monitoring and evaluation will be used to assess and re-orient efforts during the course of the decade, with the aim of ensuring ongoing relevance and effectiveness. A report aimed at a broad audience should be published every two years.

The World Conservation Union and UNESCO are developing a four-year project which engages stakeholders from selected countries in identifying and defining indicators for assessing national progress in ESD. Teachers, teacher educators and others outside of formal education are being involved in the process.

The indicators will be constructed to help monitor progress and map achievements over the decade. They will help us assess whether we are indeed getting closer to ESD in schools across Australia or whether opportunities continue to exist only in the classrooms of a handful of committed teachers.

What next?

The DESD brings with it a great opportunity to make education for sustainable development a reality in all our schools. We should not waste the momentum generated by this international initiative.

If the Decade achieves its anticipated outcomes, ESD will form part of the schooling experience of every child. Australia will have an informed and skilled group of young people, motivated and engaged in improving our environment and quality of life. If only we could have a telescope that could help us peep into the future!

Associate professor Daniella Tilbury is director of the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability (ARIES) at Macquarie University, Sydney.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au