Education for Sustained Development

What is Education for Sustained Development?

Education for Sustained Development (ESD) is a new subject being interested into the National Schools Curriculum to give children more of a balanced and in-depth understanding of the world around them; in the hope that when they finally leave school and enter the world as adults they will have more of an understanding as to the issues that are affecting the world on a global scale.

Education for Sustained Development (ESD) also includes many of the normal National Curriculum subjects such as:

• Art
• Mathematics
• Geography
• History
• Grammar
• English

But these subjects are looked at from a different perspective i.e. how these subjects are dealt with around the world. In this way it is hoped that our children will have a balanced understanding of other cultures around them - many of which are no longer confined to countries outside of the United Kingdom - and give them enough of a grounding in these cultures to allow them to interact and communicate with them on a personal level.

Education for Sustained Development (ESD) also covers what is known as Global Citizenship.

What is Global Citizenship?

Global Citizenship - as the name may suggest - covers the topic of what part we, as individuals, and as a country, play in the existence of the planet. And also what damage we, again as individuals, and as a country, are doing to the planet. At the turn of the Millennium there were several key questions that both scientists and politicians alike said needed to be answered.

These questions included what effect pollution was having on our planet, how could we preserve and protect those nature elements around us and how could we reduce pollution and find sustainable ways in which to eat, the create power and to keep warm.

The purpose of Global Citizenship - as part of the Education for Sustained Development (ESD) - is to enable children to consider these problems and to think of what they, as individuals, can do to make changes to the world around them. The thinking behind this is simple: our children are the next generation of adults who will then become the next generation of parents; and as such they will have the responsibilities to their children as we have had to ours.

The Aims of Education for Sustained Development

Education for Sustained Development (ESD) has been designed to try and encourage our children to think about the world they live in, in a more three dimensional manner. As opposed to considering what possessions they have, or what they might be doing at the weekend, Education for Sustained Development (ESD) aims to instil in our children a sense of worth for the world around them as well as the diverse mix of cultures, religions and races living in it. It also aims to show our children how they - even now as children - can make positive changes that will have a positive effect on the world in years to come.

Education for Sustained Development (ESD) is designed to encourage positive thinking on a number of issues such as:

• Reducing world poverty
• Reducing racial and sexual inequality
• Helping to preserve the environment
• Finding news ways to provide food and heating which are sustainable
• The protecting of every human being's civil and human rights

It is hoped by encouraging our children at a young age to consider these issues and to think and discuss them positively that - as a nation first and a planet second - we can find ways in which to make changes that will benefit generations to come.