I had an email the other day from UNESCO's representative on Earth.
This included a couple of policy briefs that have been developed through the Global Action Programme (GAP). The email said that these were the key messages:
- As a means of implementation, education is an important tool to support the achievement of each SDG.
- Improvements in the quality of education and equitable access to it can have a wide diversity of development benefits that demonstrate a high return on investment.
- ESD provides a valuable framework and methodology for achieving the goal of “quality education ... for all” as stated in SDG 4.
- Educational policies play a primary role in the effective implementation of ESD and framing how it influences and benefits the curriculum, teacher training, development of learning materials, and the learning environment.
What's remarkable about this is the unremarkableness of points 1 & 2 which I might paraphrase as "education is a necessary component of effective socio-economic development. But has UNESCO just stumbled across this idea? It's hardly an outcome of the GAP. Time to wake-up!
Point 3 is just UNESCO having an internal conversation between its special-pleading ESD-ers and the more mainstream (and numerous) education for all types. This has been going on for years to no great effect.
As for point 4, if you ever find out what it means, do drop me a line ...
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