Fw: [se-ed] Query: Education for Sustainable Development:WorkingModels- Experiences; Examples.
madhav...@ceeindia.org
I am an environment professional working in the area of Environment Education specifically. I believe that any kind of 'Education' will need to foster a protective behavior towards the environment, foster a behavior of equality and equity for and among all sections of society.
I have worked within both the formal and non- formal education system. In my understanding the formal school education system is all about’ inward learning" where the focus is on the individual self and is purely knowledge based. However, one does question as to where do individuals use it after having gained such wonderful knowledge. There are no avenues in sight. Though the "what” in education is available, however the 'how" sadly is missing.
ESD in action in our school education system can be achieved through capacity building through the curriculum developers, teachers, administrators, school principals, school management etc. If strategised well, this will bear a positive result in first understanding the lacunae for the practitioners and then building on these 'gaps/lacunas.
I have been conducting an exciting outdoor environment education ’action’ programme for the last two and half years in the city of Delhi and the results in the form of feed back show and tell that teachers lament the lack of 'experiential " teaching and school children are completely overawed by this outdoor experience. Here children go back with small actions they can do at their individual level not by means of any forwarding mechanism but because they are the originators of this idea and the school supports them on this one. The ideas foster a social and protective behavior toward their environment and this Earth.
I am optimistic that social change is possible only if our school children are sensitized to take responsibility both for themselves and their environment. Right now the knowledge that they gain through the school curriculum exists in a "vacuum" and they cannot fit it to a situation either for themselves or for the society! Well designed modules in ESD may fill this vacuum.
Thanks,
Lima Rosalind
Consultant
Delhi
Query: [se-ed] Query: Education for Sustainable Development: Working Models - Experiences; Examples. Reply by 13 May 2008
Dear Members,
We propose pilot programmes on ‘Education for Sustainable Development’, and are trying to understand its current practice.
The term “sustainability” here, covers a range of concepts within the notion of human interaction with both natural and socially constructed environments. A key principle is that of education as a transformative force through which sustainable environmental practices, valuing of human rights and responsibilities, and community cohesion can be realised. The slogan of “Think Global, Act Local” is one of the corner-stones of this ideal.
We would like to learn from real examples on social transformation through Education towards Sustainable Development (ESD), to better understand how ESD principles are being practically applied in educational design and implementation. There are several aspects that are especially useful. One, is inequality in education – access to basic resources for children living in poverty, caste/ethnicity, and its relationship with educational expectation, and gender equity. Two, is the idea of sustainable development as an educational theme – examination of programme design and implementation that aims to teach environmental sustainability, co-operative decision making, community contribution, or a culture of peace.
We are working on the idea that “Well-designed and implemented teaching programs in ESD show potentially positive outcomes for communities”.
As a first step, we would like to know about the teaching and learning aims of Education for Sustainable Development. We would also like to know how these are being applied in practice, and therefore request members to share:
· Information on activities and resources that teachers are designing for ESD and outline how these have facilitated student learning
· Experiences of teachers and students who have used this approach, and include any available documentation
· Examples of benefits the wider community derives, as a result of ESD, especially evidence of a positive impact on social and environmental issues.
Members’ inputs on the above would help us considerably in designing programmes on ESD at UNESCO.
Thanking you.
Huma Masood
UNESCO, New Delhi
madhav...@ceeindia.org
ESD is to capacitate the community (at large) about how they can identify and take action for changing the situation of their poor health. As far as my understanding goes, one of the best ways is to learn by doing is through action research/collaborative trial. A major component of ESD is of course environment. If we elaborately discuss environment from the view point of development, the sub themes will be management of natural resources (water/forest/soil /medicinal plants/ elements of nature etc), sustainable agriculture, common property resource management etc.
Capacitating the children (school going or non school going) to identify socio-ecological problems and trying out low-cost no-cost solutions through activity based learning can be another major technique (ENRE - as mentioned by Shankar.)
Development Research Communication and Services Centre (DRCSC) http://www.drcsc.org/
provides examples on these aspects. DRCSC has examples on action research which have inspired many people/pupil to carry on development action on their own.
Deccan Development Society http://www.ddsindia.com/www/default.asp has also some wonderful experience of capacitating people for development especially in the field of communication.
"Agriculture Man and Ecology" and "Gorakhpur Environment Action Group" have some farmer field school for mutual learning and understanding about farming.
Thanking you,
Anshuman Das,
Dev Research Comm & Services Centre (DRCSC)
Kolkata
madhav...@ceeindia.org
On a world-wide basis there is a deep concern about the health and well-being of children and youth. The horrendous erosion of the well-being of young people through ignorance, misuse of drugs, starvation, disease, tuberculosis, and incidence of HIV/AIDS, environmental dysfunction, violence, suicide, emotional problems, road deaths, abuse and maltreatment is causing anguish and requires prompt action.
In urban streets and in rural villages, the need for well developed health literacy programs for school age children is seen as paramount. There is an insistent demand for relevant education which transacts message on sustainable development to meet the challenges facing young people today. Strong efforts are required to pass on knowledge, confront attitudes and develop skills to overcome the myriad of health and social problems which are so evident. The Tamilnadu Schools Total Health Program is a well planned health, life skills and social development syllabus designed to meet these needs. It caters to development of the child, of the teacher based on the framework of sustainable development contained in the education system. All other education is useless if health, development and well-being are at risk.
Total health must involve a holistic approach, considering not only physical health but also emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual health — the whole person for the whole of life. Thus the general objectives are to:
1. Empower children and youth so that they may enhance their own health and that of their families and community.
2. Raise the skills and self-esteem of teachers so that they are proud to be teachers and thus facilitate the whole teaching learning process.
3. Improve the infrastructure of all schools i.e. clean, operating toilets, drinking water, classrooms, garbage disposal and the entire physical and emotional environment of the school as a whole.
4. Outreach in a positive way to families and community so that the school may better serve its community.
To meet this challenge for health literacy, the Schools Total Health Program (STHP), has been designed and tried in Tamilnadu over a 12 year period. It emphasizes on dynamic pedagogies and by a 2003 Government Order is required to be taught for two periods per week in all classes from one to twelve. The objective is to empower citizens who are able to make health enhancing decisions in culturally and socially diverse contexts.
The STHP meets the demand for an integrated, sustainable, comprehensive approach to dealing with health, life skills and social development issues such as: population education, HIV/AIDS, child health, community health, substance abuse, social health, mental health, values education, environmental health, maternal health, malaria, nutrition education, adolescent health, violence, safety education, hygiene, growth & development, disease prevention, risk behavior, gender issues, disaster management, family life education, consumer health, personal health, relationships, school infrastructure, education of the girl-child, and more… all organized into eight key areas to cover critical issues in the one required comprehensive, spiral syllabus from class 1 to 12.
While comprehensive manuals in English explaining the whole course are available through Vikas Publishers, new Teachers' Manuals for each class are under development in Tamil Nadu.
This initiative demonstrates progressive thinking where the curriculum, scope and sequence chart, program, units of work and example lessons have attempted to respect the past, acknowledge the present, and plan for the future.
Thanks,
Colin Yarham,
Health Education & Promotion International,
Chennai
madhav...@ceeindia.org
Well, this appears to be an interesting query. My response below partly answers the query posed. I am not sure whether we have all of it (point raised in the query) in any education programme as yet all tied up neatly together.
I have a brief encounter with environmental awareness and education programmes (EAE) and believe it to be an education of great value for life to be imparted early in life. Work on EAE has been going on for a while including at the school level in our country.
Contextual learning has been a lot about learning from the surrounding environment. EAE goes some steps further, sentisitizing the child about the environment- varied plants, birds, animals, water and so on and their activities and contributions towards making a sustainable environment. In the tribal context, the tribal culture merges with the environment. So here we have an aspect of culture that depends on 'environment'. EAE programmes perhaps still need to incorporate a crucial situation like this within its overall Environmental Education framework.
As we all know, WWF (World Wide Fund) and CEE (Center for Environmental Education) are pioneers of EAE. CEE is operating some 'Composite Schools' called Anandshalas as part of post disaster rehabilitation in Gujarat (post earthquake), Kashmir (post earthquake) and Tamil Nadu (post tsunami). Anandshalas are about formal education with quality parameters and an environmental education component integrated. More details are available on the CEE website.
Best regards,
Naaz Khair
Delhi
madhav...@ceeindia.org
Education should be imparted to the recipient without segregating him/her from his/her immediate society so that when one is getting the benefits of education which is the elevation of either financial and/or social prestige, one is not alienated from one's families and friends which is so often the case among the down-trodden in India.
This Integrated Learning Process has been experimented with time and again by many personalities. The following could be mentioned,
- The Shantiniketan Model practiced by Rabindranath Thakur, the Nobel Laureate, who tried to integrate nature and people. Art and crafts of common people were given an elevated status and as a result Sriniketan became a world-known name. Agriculture- a part and parcel of the Indian livelihood- was given its long-due important position in the overall scheme of things. There was a sense of simple living and self-imposed discipline with scope for much intellectual discussion and cultural activities to nurture the head and the heart.
- The Eklavya Model by Vinod Raina near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh where he and his team of volunteers tried to devise simple experiment-based teaching methods for school children. This resulted in popularizing science among the youngsters; their fears were abated and excitement soared with the fun of learning that was close behind. The same methods were applied to Geography and other subjects and were very successful. A magazine, 'Chakmak' fully operated by the young ones, was the communicator and cultural ambassador of the whole new movement. Effect of the Eklavya movement was so great that the State Government later adopted many of its policies/methods and ways.
- The Model used in USSR by Anton Makarenko as depicted in his volumes of 'A Road to life' where he has described the how and what of the innovative ways used by him in the school for street-children created just after the success of the Russian Revolution.
To achieve ESD in its most genuine form, innovative models such as the above and likewise are required. It also needs dynamic/innovative leaders with a creative (not rigid) mind-set along with a dedicated, committed, focused and industrious team of workers to make the vision come true.
Warm regards.
Susmita Chakraborty,
Bengal Engineering and Science University
West Bengal
madhav...@ceeindia.org
This is a really interesting but very complex issue because education has its own strengths and limitations in this process of development. Education gives individual and societal benefits.
The present education system promotes and recognizes individual achievements more than the collective efforts. The focus on competition is higher than on cooperation with others.
The philosophers in
education may think differently, but for common people, the main utility of
education is to increase the earning potential of the individual.
Planning for ESD
needs multifarious interventions. Designing of this programme should give equal
importance to other sectors such as, advancement of livelihood options, health
facilities, access to information and required monetary capacity to convert
ideas in to action.
On the education part, the program needs to redefine the philosophy of education, followed by curriculum and teachers training. For this programme, teachers would not be only teaching but they have to play a larger role as an agent for social change in society who is aware of history and factors of the process of social change as well as ‘Banking Concept of Knowledge’ with commitment to society.
The Gandhian Perspective will be helpful to some extent while recognizing collective existence, cooperation with the development of Heart, Hand and Mind. Mr.Anil Bhatt of Gram Dakshinamurti School, Avanla-Rajkot, Mr.Narayan Bhai of Vedchi-Surat, Shri Chunni Kaka of Gandhi Ashram, Ahmedabad are the some prominent Gandhians who can provide the right framework and vision to make the planning more realistic.
Thanks and
Regards
Sanjeev
Rai
UNICEF
Bhopal
madhav...@ceeindia.org
Moderator’s Note: Dear Members, We are posting the correct response by Mr Shankar Musafir. An incorrect version of the response was earlier posted, due to some confusion at our end. We apologise for this error.
As the moderator puts it, ESD – ‘A topic relatively unexplored’- three years into the Decade of Education for Sustainable development, we are still exploring.
Nevertheless, a lot has happened on the different strands and components of ESD despite the fact that there is still no holistic work happening on ESD at the moment.
All the work happening in the name
of ESD seems to be focused in the field of environment education. Although
environment forms an important component of ESD but equally important are the
social components i.e gender, diversity issues, human rights, peace, conflict
resolution and others. (and also the linkages between social and environmental
and economic components)
While there are many organizations working on social components- I am yet to come across any initiative which has a comprehensive work on both the environmental and social components of ESD. It’s environmental or social- disparate.
I would out here share a few cases I have come across of disparate nevertheless efficient efforts towards ESD.
The following organizations have done important work in the field of environment education –
The Centre for Environment Education (CEE) has done pioneering work in the field of environment education. Their work ranges from creating primers on environment for both teachers and students. Some of the best primers in the field have been generated by CEE. They also conduct training programmes for teachers and students – Visit www.ceeindia.org. They also have an interesting website http://www.kidsrgreen.org/krg.html - especially designed for children.
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) CSE has also done innovative work in the field of ESD through its environmental initiatives. The monthly magazine Gobar Times has been at the forefront of information on environmental sustainability for beginners. Visit- www.gobartimes.org
The Green Schools Programme on environmental auditing is first of its kind in the region. In this programme, the children of a school conduct a survey in the school on how resources like water, air and energy etc are being used inside the school. They prepare a report card of the school. The manual, which helps the children do the audit, is a good resource book for children and teachers who want to learn about environment. As I have been personally involved in the project since its inception, we have seen the change in teachers and students when they come to know the reality about their school in terms of environmental practices. It is amazing to see rural schools score over urban schools in terms of sustainability. More on:http://www.cseindia.org/programme/eeu/html/index.asp The activity sheets on the CSE website also speak about contextual environmental issues: Refer to http://www.cseindia.org/programme/eeu/html/activ_archive.asp
The Energy and Resources Institute(TERI): Their work on environment can be accessed at; http://www.edugreen.teri.res.in/index.asp
There are many more organizations working on the environmental component but these are a few important ones which I have listed. The Ecology and Natural Resource Education (ENRE) project of ‘Development Research Communication and Services Centre (DRCSC)’ has been successful in the rural areas.
The social dimensions of ESD have been addressed by the following institutions satisfactorily:
Pravah is one of the best
institutions in the country working on life skills based education (LSBE). They
have developed a full-fledged training programme for children on conflict
resolution. The programme is delivered through workshop sessions, which are
interactive and activity based. The content includes sessions on non-violence,
gender, understanding values, identity, sustainable development, stroking,
communication and lots of other relevant issues.
Being involved in this
project, I have witnessed a significant change in the attitude of students after
receiving the training. In fact a lot of these workshops have materialized into
initiatives by students where they directly address issues in the
community.
Similar workshops are also done at the college level and a lot of
the workshops have now materialized into formal organizations working on social
as well as environmental issues.
More information could be accessed at
www.younginfluencers.com and www.pravah.org
MISCELLANEOUS COMPONENTS:
Health: There is another strand of ESD, which has flourished, very well- that is health. A lot of organizations have put it under the head of Life skills or sex education. Yuva – Adolescent Education Program of the Department of Education, Delhi Government has done significant work on the health perspective. It also has some important sections on the social component as well.
ICT: It has been discussed in the solution exchange forum and is an important part of ESD. The gospel ‘Think Global, act local’ could truly be achieved through it as global information in a village can be accessed only through ICT.
It is important to realize that as the funding is disparate- on environment, on social development or on ICT- developing a composite programme becomes problematic for non-profit organization working with communities.
Another, unexplored section is that ESD is primarily thought of at the school level; however it is equally important for youth- and not to leave out adults.
Thanks
Shankar Musafir,
Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi
madhav...@ceeindia.org
Thanks for extending the closing date for this query.
During my association with different NGOs during the last 12 years, I have closely observed and contributed to several educational models for the deprived groups.
This group now
with whom i am associated is very committed to the cause of educating the girl
child in rural India. We have observed that
the role of mothers in making their daughters education possible and sustainable
is of greatest importance. The mothers clubs meet regularly to discuss the
progress made by their girls. One thing is for sure, after the child has spent
some time learning, the mothers are the happiest to see the results because they
see a direct change from their own situation. Whatever views on ICDS people
might have, but anganwadis have at least made people more concerned about their
children in rural India.
In Mehmoodabad of
UP, self help groups formed by the mothers of children attending the alternate
learning centres have collected sewing machines to run training centres for
older girls of the village. These centres attract young girls as they can
showcase their sewing skills as an asset as well as save family income in view
of rising tailoring costs. We saw a girl busy tailoring a shirt for her brother
for the festivities. From simple tailoring, it’s only a matter of time these
groups will move to other advance forms of sewing, embroidery, tapestry,
needlecraft, etc. which are more lucrative and income
generating.
Looking forward
to comments.
With regards,
Junned
Khan
IIM-Ahmedabad
Alumni Supported Initiative
Gurgaon,
madhav...@ceeindia.org
ESD is to capacitate the community (at large) about how they can identify and take action for changing the situation of their unwell ness. As far as my understanding goes, one of the best ways is to learn by doing is through action research/collaborative trial. A major component of ESD is of course environment. If we elaborately discuss environment from the view point of development, the sub themes will be management of natural resources (water/forest/soil /medicinal plants/ elements of nature etc), sustainable agriculture, common property resource management etc.
Capacitating the children (school going or non school going) to identify socio-ecological problems and trying out low-cost no-cost solutions through activity based learning can be another major technique (ENRE - as mentioned by Shankar.)
Development Research Communication and Services Centre (DRCSC) http://www.drcsc.org/
provides examples on these aspects. DRCSC has examples on action research which have inspired many people/pupil to carry on development action on their own.
Deccan Development Society http://www.ddsindia.com/www/default.asp has also some wonderful experience of capacitating people for development especially in the field of communication.
"Agriculture Man and Ecology" and "Gorakhpur Environment Action Group" have some farmer field school for mutual learning and understanding about farming.
Thanking you,
Anshuman Das,
Dev Research Comm & Services Centre (DRCSC)
Kolkata
Query: [se-ed] Query: Education for Sustainable Development: Working Models - Experiences; Examples. Reply by 13 May 2008
madhav...@ceeindia.org
Dear Friends,
The basic issues/problems of Education are also to be kept in view and solutions found to make the Education really a sustainable one:
- Poor entry rate in primary schools especially girls
- High drop out rates
- Adult literacy
- Poor infrastructure
- Shortage of Trained teachers and their overall poor attendance
- Computer literacy both for teachers and students
- Availability of soft wares in local language
- Syllabus
- Emphasis on Applied education
- Vocational Training
- Rising cost of higher education
- Poor budgetary allocation
- Lessons to be learned from Sarva Siksha Abhiyan
Thanks and regards,
G. K. Agrawal
Rural and Micro-Finance Consultant and Advocate
Mumbai