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Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a relatively
new, evolving concept. At its core, ESD promotes the idea
of sustainable development by integrating environmental, social
and economic imperatives into education for a better quality
life in the present as well as the future.
Despite much progress, the world is faced with great challenges,
including rapid population growth, poverty, urbanisation,
natural resource depletion, unplanned development, violence
and terrorism. This scenario, coupled with natural calamities
such as earthquakes and tsunamis, is wreaking ecological havoc.
The gravity of the situation becomes all the more alarming
when we realize that our economic well-being is directly dependent
on environmental goods and services.
What is required to salvage the situation is a paradigmatic
shift in our thinking, values and actions. Given that education
is the most effective vehicle for attitudinal change, it can
be invaluable when pressed into service for promoting values
for sustainable living. However, as the conventional system
of education did not address sustainable development issues
adequately enough, a need was felt to introduce a broader,
more inclusive concept of education that eventually paved
the way for ESD.
Unlike conventional education that is time-bound, ESD is
a life-long learning process which embraces all three pillars
of sustainable development: society, environment and economy
and seeks to integrate them at all levels of education. Through
this holistic, integrated approach, ESD enables all individuals
to fully develop knowledge, values and skills necessary to
take part in the decision-making process for improving the
quality of life both locally and globally. As Frits Hesselink,
former chair of IUCN’s Commission on Education and Communication,
puts it, ESD is “a process of learning to make decisions
that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology
and equity for all communities.”
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History of ESD
The trend of using education as a conduit for furthering
environmental consciousness and responsibility can be traced
back to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment
held in 1972 in Stockholm. The Stockholm Conference, as it
was popularly called, together with its follow-ups in Belgrade
and Tbilisi in 1975 and 1977, respectively, mapped out the
contours of Environmental Education (EE). Owing to its potential
and applicability as an awareness raising and learning tool
for the environmental movement, EE was eagerly adopted by
development organizations and educational institutions through
integration into formal and informal education or as a standalone
subject.
The journey from EE to ESD began when the concept of ‘sustainable
development’ entered the development lexicon. Coined
by Lester Brown, the term was first used in 1980 by the World
Conservation Union (IUCN)
in its seminal The World Conservation
Strategy. The concept gained currency in 1987 with the
publication of the Brundtland Commission’s report Our
Common Future that defined sustainable development as the
ethic of “meeting the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs.”
The next watershed came five years later in 1992 when the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,
popularly known as the Earth Summit, was held in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil. The conference endorsed the Rio Declaration, setting
out 27 principles for promoting sustainable development. Agreement
was also reached on Agenda 21that provided a framework for
action on sustainable development. It was in Chapter 36 of
Agenda 21 that the idea of furthering the sustainable development
agenda through education was articulated.
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