“ESD is fundamentally about values, with respect at the centre: respect for others, including those of present and future generations, for difference and diversity, for the environment, for the resources of the planet we inhabit. Education enables us to understand ourselves and others and our links with the wider natural and social environment, and this understanding serves as a durable basis for building respect. Along with a sense of justice, responsibility, exploration and dialogue, ESD aims to move us to adopting behaviours and practices which enable all to live a full life without being deprived of basics.
ESD mirrors the concern for education of high quality, demonstrating characteristics: such as:
- Interdisciplinary and holistic: learning for sustainable development embedded in the whole curriculum, not as a separate subject;
- Values-driven: sharing the values and principles underpinning sustainable development;
- Critical thinking and problem solving: leading to confidence in addressing the dilemmas and challenges of sustainable development;
- Multi-method: word, art, drama, debate, experience, … different pedagogies which model the processes;
- Participatory decision-making: learners participate in decisions on how they are to learn;
- Locally relevant: addressing local as well as global issues, and using the language(s) which learners most commonly use.”
“ Quality education :
- supports a rights-based approach to all educational endeavours. Education is a human right, and therefore quality education supports all of the human rights;
- is based on the four pillars of Education for All – learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and with others, and learning to be (Delors, et al., 1996);
- views the learner as an individual, a family member, community member, and a global citizen and educates to create individual competency in all four roles;
- upholds and conveys the ideals of a sustainable world – a world that is just, equitable, and peaceable, in which individuals care for the environment to contribute to intergenerational equity;
- takes into consideration the social, economic, and environmental contexts of a particular place and shapes the curriculum or programme to reflect these unique conditions. Quality education is locally relevant and culturally appropriate;
- is informed by the past (e.g. indigenous and traditional knowledge), is relevant to the present, and prepares individuals for the future;
- builds knowledge, life skills, perspectives, attitudes and values;
- provides the tools to transform current societies to more sustainable societies;
- is measurable.”
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/