Steve Martin and I have sent this to the THE, the Guardian, the Indy, and the TES, noting, with disapproval, the absence of any governmental representation at the ESDFest in Japan.
Dear Sir,
Education and Sustainable Development – The UK Government’s Response?
UNESCO’s Director-General, the Crown Prince of Japan and Princess Lalla Hasna of Morocco - the President of the Mohammed VI Foundation for the Protection of the Environment - opened the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, on Monday, 10 November. This high level conference marks the end of the UN Decade of ESD (2005-2014) and will create a Roadmap to launch the Global Action Programme (GAP), a follow-up to the Decade, that will propose new goals and objectives, priority action areas and strategies.
Under the banner Learning Today for a Sustainable Future, more than 1,000 participants from over 100 countries are attending, including representatives of UNESCO Member States, NGOs, academia, the private sector, individual experts, youth and UN agencies. Nearly 60 foreign ministers and 17 deputy ministers, mainly representing Ministries of Education, are attending. Regrettably, none are from the UK. Yet the UK has good stories to tell from all sectors of education, particularly so in Scotland and Wales as was set out in a 2013 UK National Commission for UNESCO Policy Brief.
At its closing, the Conference will announce the Aichi-Nagoya Declaration, which will be an important contribution to the UN's new Sustainable Development Goals that come into effect in 2015. It will also provide input to the World Education Forum, taking place in Incheon, Republic of Korea, next May.
If, as the UK Government believes, "sustainable development is a key responsibility for all of us and everyone has to play their part in making it a reality" (DfE Web site), and that schools, as places of teaching and learning, have a particularly important role to play in helping pupils understand the impact they have on the planet, it is hardly comprehensible why a UK senior minister and civil servant will not be there. The Government argues that, as models of good practice, schools can be places where sustainable living and working are demonstrated to young people and the local community, all of which is embraced by the idea of education for sustainable development (ESD). ESD can be thought of as a process of learning how to make decisions that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology and equity of all communities. As UNESCO puts it: "Building the capacity for such futures-oriented thinking is a key task of education."
Any child starting primary school in September 2014 will complete their secondary education in around 2028. No one can predict with any accuracy how the world will develop over this period, but it is likely to change in many significant ways. An expanding population, increasing globalisation and advances in technology, will bring colossal societal and ecological changes, particularly if our unsustainable practices and lifestyles prevail. Without significant policy interventions, more people will be consuming more resources; climate change will cause global temperatures to increase; demand for food will double globally; ecological damage will continue apace, and we will have an ageing population. This is just a taste of what our children's future might look like unless we begin to act wisely.
Is it not astonishing that the UK is not a part of this significant conversation about how to do that?
Stephen Martin, Visiting Professor in Learning for Sustainability, University of the West of England, Bristol
William Scott, Emeritus Professor University of Bath
Respond