REPORT OF UNESCO EXPERT MEETING ON - APCEIU

Introduction
UNESCO held an experts’ meeting to develop strategies for addressing the goals of the Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development (DESD) in the Asia and Pacific region from 1 to 3 May 2006 in Kanchanaburi,
Thailand. Reflecting the intentions of the DESD, the goals of the experts’ meeting were to:
• facilitate networking linkages, exchanges and interactions among stakeholders in ESD
• enhance the quality of teaching and learning in ESD
• assist countries in achieving the Millennium Development Goals through ESD
• foster new opportunities for countries to incorporate ESD into their education reform efforts
The major task of the meeting was to develop ways of reorienting existing education in the region towards
sustainable development by analyzing and understanding the complex concepts of ESD from diverse perspectives,
seeking ways to apply ESD effectively in local education contexts, and encouraging collaborative linkages among
the many different interests and stakeholders.
Reorienting education to ESD necessitates the identification of the knowledge, issues, perspectives, skills and
values related to all the dimensions of sustainability not only for school-based curricula to benefit students, but
also for both pre-service and in-service teacher training. It is further recognized that with the many challenges
facing educational systems and limited resources to address them, strategies would need to be developed to reach
educators and teacher trainers, and to persuade senior educators and administrators to formulate policies enabling
the integration of ESD into curricula and teacher training programmes. This would entail the development of
guidelines for reorienting education to ESD and appropriate pedagogical approaches and resources to support
these efforts. Apart from ensuring that ESD takes account of local cultural contexts, it is also useful to identify
ESD topics that are already part of the formal education curricula to facilitate the efforts of educators from
different disciplines in examining and delivering curriculum activities that can contribute to ESD.
With this overview in mind, the specific objectives of the experts’ meeting were to:
• identify and conceptualize the content areas for ESD
• discuss the relationship of ESD with other educational initiatives such as Environmental Education (EE),
Education for International Understanding (EIU), Education for All (EFA), the United Nations Literacy
Decade (UNLD) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• recommend guidelines for reorienting existing education to address sustainable development
• plan the organization of the APEID-APCEIU workshop on “Reorienting Teacher Education to Address
Sustainability” to be held in Penang, Malaysia in August 2006
The expected outcomes of the experts’ meeting included:
• papers presented by experts on content areas of ESD
• linkages of different education initiatives with ESD, such as UNLD, EFA and the MDGs
• recommendations and guidelines on reorienting existing education to address sustainable development
• a draft regional-level framework for medium and long-term strategy for formal and non-formal teacher
education for ESD
• a draft structure for the APEID-APCEIU consultative meeting to be held in Penang in August 2006
• a review of the role of APEID as an institutional mechanism and network for promoting the proposed
approach to ESD in the Asia and Pacific region
The three-day meeting was divided into seven sessions:
Session I: Environmental and economic perspectives of ESD
Session II: Social and cultural perspectives of ESD
Session III: Teacher education and ESD
Session IV: Discussion on the relationship of ESD with other education initiatives
Session V: Guidelines for reorienting existing education to address sustainable development
Session VI: Cooperation with UNESCO’s partners in ESD by ACCU, APCEIU, UNU
Session VII: Planning for the APEID-APCEIU Meeting in August 2006
Papers presented for each session highlighted the state of the art on each theme, drew attention to key issues for
consideration and provided the foundation for discussion. The following sections summarize the main points
raised and discussed at the meeting, and the full papers are available in this report.
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