Transcript The Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International

Regional Workshop on ESD
Strategies for the Asia and Pacific
Priorities and Themes for
ESD in the Asia-Pacific –The
Importance of EIU for ESD
Lawrence Surendra
22 November 2004, Seoul
Mandate of APCEIU
( Article 2 of AGREEMENT with UNESCO)
■ Strengthen national and regional capacities in education
for international understanding.
■ Encourage and facilitate collaborative links between AsiaPacific initiatives and other regional, international and global
efforts in education.
■ Implement research and development of the philosophy,
teaching methods and curriculum of education for international
understanding.
■ Organize training workshops and seminars.
■ Produce and disseminate teaching materials and other
publications.
APCEIU Mission
PROMOTE, regionally and internationally, EIU
which
strengthens
participatory
democracy,
protection of human rights, social and economic
justice, inter-cultural respect, ecological sustainability,
and nonviolent and just reconciliation of conflicts.
COLLABORATE with educators and institutions to
expand, strengthen, and institutionalize EIU in
schools and society.
SERVE as a centre of excellence for EIU in the AsiaPacific Region.
SHARE ideas and lessons for enhancing and
implementing EIU with educators, policy-makers,
institutions, and communities in other regions and
countries, through networking and partnerships.
Main Areas of Work
APCEIU programs and activities are organized
around
the following 6 areas:
■ Asia-Pacific Teacher Training Workshops on EIU
■ EIU Training for Civil Society Leaders
■ Research and Development of EIU Curriculum &
Teaching/Learning Materials including in the future
development of online courses using IT
■ Publication and Information Service on EIU
■ Cooperation and Networking
APCEIU EIU and ESD
• APCEIU work in the field of EIU is
closely inter-related to the
objectives of ESD.
• The Objectives of ESD according
to UNESCO is, “the promotion of
values and ethics through
education at different levels to
make an impact on people’s
lifestyles and behaviour and help
build a sustainable future”
Education for Sustainable
Development
• UNESCO’s ESD work has been
based on the three thronged
concept of:
Transdisciplinarity
Innovation
Partnering
Five Key Lessons learnt in the Decade
between Rio Earth Summit (1992)
and Johannesburg WSSD (2002)
1. ESD is an emerging concept seeking to
empower people of all ages to assume
responsibility for creating a sustainable future
2. Basic Education is a foundation and
contributes to ESD
3. Need to refocus many existing education
policies, programmes and practices
Five Key Lessons learnt in the Decade
between Rio Earth Summit (1992)
and Johannesburg WSSD (2002)
(continued)
4. Education is the key to rural
transformation and is essential to ensuring
the economic, cultural and ecological
vitality of rural areas and communities
5.
Life long learning, including adult and
community education are all vital
ingredients of capacity building for a
sustainable future
APCEIU as the only Regional Centre on EIU
Focuses on 4 of the key lessons learnt
between Rio and Johannesburg.
These are:
ESD an emerging concept that seeks to
empower people of all ages to assume
responsibility for creating a sustainable future
Basic Education as a foundation that contributes to
ESD
Refocusing on existing education policies, programmes
and practices
Stress on education as the key to rural transformation
and as essential to ensuring the economic, cultural and
ecological vitality of rural areas and communities
Sustainable Development is Grounded
on four interdependent systems and
supports four inter-related principles for
sustainable living
Four Systems:
★ Biophysical
★ Economic
★ Social and
★ Political
Four Inter-Related Principles:
★
★
★
★
Peace and Equity
Democracy
Appropriate Development
Conservation
Promoting ESD in the Region and
Challenges for EIU
The Contexts we face:
• Macro-Institutional Challenges and Global and
Planetary Inter-linkages – Issues such as Global
Warming and impacts on local unsustainability and
livelihoods
• Socio-economic Issues – Livelihood, Participation
and Partnership
• Lifestyle Issues – Urbanization, Lifestyles and
Consumption
Macro-Institutional Challenges and Global
and Planetary Inter-linkages – Issues
such as Global Warming and impacts on
local unsustainability and livelihoods
Impacts caused by global warming are on a global
and planetary scale and affects planet earth as an
ecosystem. Mitigation has to be done by humankind
as a whole. This requires giving new meaning to the
EIU concept of ‘Learning to live together’ not only
between human beings but between humans and
sentient beings (nature)
Impacts on livelihoods and the resulting poverty,
hunger and destitution needs to be addressed
through a new ethic of living sustainably.
A new ethic built around social justice, democracy,
peace and ecological integrity
Socio-economic Issues
Livelihood, Participation and
Partnership
The Asia Pacific Region has seen rapid
economic growth and prosperity especially in
regions such as North Asia. Yet the region as
a whole is beset with problems of rapid
environmental and ecological degradation,
growing income disparity, mounting youth
unemployment and dissatisfaction resulting in
threats to both social peace and sustainability
Socio-economic issues of livelihood, issues of
participation and partnership in economic
growth and democratisation have to be at the
heart of the efforts to promote ESD and build
sustainable futures.
Lifestyle Issues – Urbanization,
Lifestyles and Consumption
• Closely related to the issues of global
•
warming, livelihood destruction, persistent
poverty, malnutrition caused by hunger are
issues related to the affluence and wealth of
a minority. These are lifestyle issues and the
values associated with consumer lifestyles.
We live in a world where ill health and
malnutrition caused by lack of access to
livelihood and food coexists with the
malnutrition of excess and modern epidemics
of obesity caused by over consumption of the
affluent, the latter affecting close to 400
million.
The Asia Pacific Region- The Challenges
we face and contributions we can make
The Asia Pacific region faces a dual
challenge
Either to follow blindly the paradigm of
unrestrained (socially and ecologically)
economic growth contributing to the rapid
destruction of the earth’s planetary
ecosystem
OR
Learn from our civilisational roots and the
philosophy of restraint rooted in all our
cultural and religious traditions
Learning from the Diversity of the
Asia Pacific Region
• The rich cultural diversity of Asia is based and closely
related to the diverse ecological settings within Asia.
• In the Asia Pacific Region all forms of ecosystems
from tropical and rain forests and semi-tropics, to
deserts to temperate climate regions exist.
• It is by a recognition of this diversity of ecological
settings that the basis of education and dialogue that
contributes to sustainable futures at the global level
can be done.
• This is particularly true when we see the very survival
of planet earth threatened in the face of irreversible
climate change.
Mutual Learning
• A major contribution the Asia Pacific Region can
make to both the global community and within the
different societies in the Asia Pacific region is to
learn from the sustainable life styles and practices
of the indigenous communities of the Asia and
Pacific region.
• As much as the Asia Pacific Region can contribute
from its civilisation roots to a global ethic of
sustainability, the region itself can learn from its
indigenous communities and they have a major
contribution to make to Education for Sustainable
Development.
Greed and Need
• Finally
Whether we make it to the path of social and
ecological sustainability,
Whether we can contribute to assuring future
generations that humans and planet earth can
look to sustainable futures depends on
Gandhi’s maxim:
“ there is enough for everyone’s need
but not enough for everyone’s greed”