I was asked the other day for a comment on this: "EE can help achieve the SDGs”. This is obviously an important idea, but for me it begs a prior question: how can (and does) education (broadly conceived) help achieve the Goals?
Here are a few thoughts:
- Given that (up to now) EE remains (at best) a subset of education more generally, it seems a logical necessity to address the broader question first before saying anything about the (inevitably) narrower one.
- Education, like EE, has both formal and informal aspects to it and the two intertwine. Education and EE are available both to young and old(er) people; most tax-payer money is spent on the former.
- Education (in schools, etc) is a social strategy that has lots of socio-economic goals to its name; not all these outputs obviously focus on sustainability, though most might conceivably contribute to it.
- EE (etc) is a broad church with disparate dogmas and multiple highways to salvation in this life.
- Crucially, the need for formal education programmes, and equitable and prolonged access to them, are convincing components of the SDGs.
- It’s hard to write the last sentence with EE as the focus in a convincing manner
Thus, if I were answering this question, I’d want to begin with Education and work towards EE (etc). I’m wondering if that case has been made by anyone.
Respond