News and Updates

Here it is:  

My last word on the ESDFest.  Sadly, this has not been written by Vera Brittain. It is a Youth Statement that was adopted at the UNESCO ESD Youth Conference in Okayama, Japan, on 7 November, to provide "a vision, commitment, and recommendations from...

As promised, I've been following the UNESCO ESDFest on the Daily Mail – well, MailOnline.  Here, after a quite harrowing search, are the top headings for 'ESD' so far: The obstacle to treating China's contaminated soil is finding someone to pay...

UNESCO's Global Action Programme [ GAP ] replaces the DESD on the 1st January 2015 and is intended as "a concrete, tangible contribution to the post-2015 agenda." Its objectives are to ... reorient education and learning so that everyone has...

Shaping the Future We We Want, the UN DESD Final Report is here.  The report says: "A solid foundation has been laid for ESD at the end of the DESD, achieved by raising awareness, influencing policies and generating significant numbers of...

If you read the official UNESCO account of the opening of the ESDFest in Aichi-Nagoya, you cannot but help be struck by how much the environment features.  Here's the Crown Prince of Japan: "On our earth today, along with economic growth...

To help prepare for the UNESCO ESDFest, there was a catchphrase and logo competition with the aim of helping people easily understand the concept of ESD.  The winning catchphrase entry was from Noriko Kawamura, an elementary school teacher in Toyota City....

I hear via social media that the opening morning of the Aichi-Nagoya ESDFest was a gas, and rather surreal in places, with dancing girls, drums, violins, a crown prince, a real princess, and a video from Ban Ki Moon.  It...

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...

Will you be at Aichi-Nagoya, I mean, for UNESCO's latest ESDFest which starts today?  It has been billed by the terminally optimistic as the beginning to the end of the world's problems.  This, on balance, may be somewhat exaggerated, and I hope...