The International Implementation Scheme (IIS) - Unesco

DESD International Implementation Scheme (IIS)
demanded by the challenges of sustainability. Accelerating progress towards sustainability
depends on rekindling more caring relationships between humans and the natural world and
facilitating the creative exploration of more environmentally and socially responsible forms of
development.’ Education enables us as individuals and communities to understand ourselves
and others and our links with the wider natural and social environment. This understanding
serves as a durable basis for respecting the world around us and the people who inhabit it.
Key roles for education
• Education must inspire the belief that each of us has both the power and the
responsibility to effect positive change on a global scale.
• Education is the primary agent of transformation towards sustainable development,
increasing people’s capacities to transform their visions for society into reality.
• Education fosters the values, behaviour and lifestyles required for a sustainable future.
• Education for sustainable development is a process of learning how to make decisions
that consider the long-term future of the equity, economy and ecology of all
communities.
• Education builds the capacity for such futures-oriented thinking.
The quest for sustainable development is multi-faceted – it cannot depend on education alone.
Many other social parameters affect sustainable development, such as governance, gender
relations, forms of economic organisation and of citizen participation. Indeed, it may be
preferable to speak of learning for sustainable development, since learning is not restricted to
education as such. Learning includes what happens in education systems, but extends into daily
life – important learning takes place in the home, in social settings, in community institutions and
in the workplace. Although labelled as a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, it
must encompass and promote all forms of learning.
It is the satisfaction of seeing people learn that motivates many educators. Research has shown
that most educators work to help individuals to grow and develop intellectually, emotionally,
spiritually or practically and thus, at best, to flourish in whatever socio-environmental or sociocultural
contexts they find themselves in. Many have a passionate view on why and how
different aspects of education can and must play a vital role in this process. The development of
strong positive values in learners – about themselves, learning, the world around them and their
place in it – are a key part of what educators seek to foster in learners: developing as a whole
person, becoming active and responsible citizens, discovering a love of lifelong learning,
realising their strengths and potential. This personal learning is the most likely to foster the
values which underpin sustainable development, since it is more a matter of confidently
adopting a vision rather than assimilating a particular body of knowledge. Learning within ESD
cannot however remain merely personal – it must lead to active participation in seeking and
implementing new patterns of social organisation and change, working to find structures and
mechanisms more likely to reflect the vision of sustainable development.
Since 1945 and with the strong encouragement of the United Nations, the human family has
increasingly engaged in a worldwide cross-cultural dialogue on common goals and shared
values. The drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a prime example. The
many international declarations and treaties on environmental conservation and sustainable
development provide additional examples. Out of this global dialogue is emerging a consensus
on a certain core of shared values. It is this set of shared values for building a just, sustainable,
and peaceful world that ESD seeks to promote. An ongoing cross-cultural dialogue regarding
shared values is also a central concern of ESD.
ESD mirrors the concern for education of quality, which is defined partly on the basis of learning
outcomes – what education enables learners to be and to do, including a focus on useable
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2005