The springtime of ESD For All (EFA) - developing a sustainable generation

It was springtime 2009 when the Mid-Decade Global Assessment of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) took place in Bonn, Germany. During my intervention in the plenary hall of the convention center, former parliamentary site before the capital was transferred to Berlin, I stated that the global campaign for eradicating illiteracy, EFA (Education For All) should read Education for Sustainable Development – For All (ESD-FA).

Isn’t UNESCO’s cross-cutting theme the eradication of poverty through quality education? After ten years of EFA 1990-2000, the Dakar (Africa) convention concluded that the conventional system of education proved sub-standard although enrollment increased in developing countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia Pacific. By then, the United Nations set the UN Millennium Development Goals (UN MDGs) 2000-2015 reinforcing it with the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Then UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura was tasked to implement the DESD to empower mankind. The DG redefined the new track of education as “going beyond the three R’s to action education, which should result in behavioral transformation.”

In the same year 2005, the UNESCO Philippine National Commission (NatCom) Chairman, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo proposed the Philippine bid to be the Southeast Asian Center for Lifelong Learning for Sustainable Development (SEA-CLLSD). The establishment of the SEA-CLLSD as a Category 2 Center under the auspices of UNESCO was approved by its 35th General Conference in October 2009.

The UNESCO Asia Pacific ESD Strategy 2005-2014

The UNESCO Asia Pacific ESD Strategy (2005-2014) is symbolized by the astrolabe, an ancient maritime navigator instrument to remind the 45 UNESCO Asia Pacific member states of the DESD time frame: From 2005 – awareness raising and engaging stakeholders; 2006 – monitoring system development; 2007-2013 – teacher education and reorienting curricula; 2008 – strengthening leadership, and national coordination; and 2009 – technical support.

Since 2005 to 2009, the SEA-CLLSD secretariat led by Dr. Juanita Guerrero and special consultant Ambassador Hector Villarroel (former Permanent Delegate to UNESCO Paris, 1998-2006) has engaged in ESD awareness raising activities. Focused Group Discussions were held in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The directory of LLSD universities, NGOs and communities were drawn from these consultations. Our major mandate to work together with DepEd, TESDA and CHED resulted in establishing the SEA-CLLSD Technical Working Group made up of directors from these government agencies.

Meantime, I would travel to the Southeast Asian countries, together with Commissioners – Dr. Nona Ricafort, Carmen Padilla or Dr. Ethel Valenzuela – to acquaint the directors of their Ministry of Education with our Category 2 programs. During the same time, these directors made three field visits to the LLSD teacher training college and laboratory (the 43-year old Operation Brotherhood Montessori Center) where they saw the ESD school system from preschool, elementary school to professional high school. The OB Montessori Center has a giant “bahay kubo” where non-formal ESD literacy training in the Pagsasarili Mothercraft twin project for mothers and their children is held. It also provides “inclusive education” for special and gifted children, as well as functional literacy for indigenous people, and multi-faith/multi-cultural communities.

Infusion of ESD in the national system

The infusion of ESD for the national coordination system required in the astrolabe has been working within the national EFA Committee (NEC), led by DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus (chairman), and Mr. Ed dela Torre (co-chair), president of the NGO Education Network. The UNESCO NatCom sits together with representatives from the Congressional Education Committee, DepEd, TESDA, CHED, departments of Budget, Social Welfare, Science and Technology, Agriculture, Health, Labor and Employment, Local Government, NEDA, Information Agency, Council for the Welfare of Children, Union of Local Authorities, Office of Muslim Affairs, Anti-Poverty Commission, Youth Commission, League of Corporate Foundations, and SEAMEO.

The Bonn global conference foresaw the major hurdle of ESD in the orientation of the curricula and teacher education, which should intensify between 2009 to 2013. Majority of the international delegates to Bonn focused ESD on Environmental Education, Climate Change and Risk Management, Food Production, as well as Energy and Over Consumption.

The Philippine Category 2 Center exhibit was able to demonstrate the ESD teacher-training and curriculum. Its exhibit and demonstration of the Mothercraft Pagsasarili twin program for functional literacy, was the only one which gave evidence of how an alternative system of education can ignite the inherent human sustainability. This scientific system of education was discovered by Dr. Maria Montessori a century ago. Employed by the OB Montessori Center for the past 43 years and made affordable for the underprivileged in 150 Pagsasarili preschools all over Luzon and the Visayas, the official SEA-CLLSD is ready to spread it in Southeast Asia.

Designing an ESD approach to pre-service and in-service teacher education

The cost of reorienting education to address sustainability is so great. The world’s teachers number approximately 59 million. The UNESCO ESD Toolkit (2006) suggests that the element of “sustainable development” can be inputted in the pre-service and in-service stages of teacher education. Since retraining education graduates during in-service training is quite costly, the ESD reorientation should already be done during the pre-service period in college to prepare for the actual teaching of the new professional teachers at the school site.

Research put together in this ESD Toolkit points out significant factors: (1) Many topics inherent in ESD are already part of the formal education curriculum, but they are not seen to contribute to the larger concept of sustainability;

(2) Identifying and recognizing components of ESD are the key to moving forward. This requires the understanding of “sustainability” and its components. The SEA-CLLSD has a unique but clear definition of “lifelong learning” and “education for sustainable development”.

(3) Examination of the national curriculum should take place to search for any existing sustainability concept per discipline (curricular subjects). Then, identify where ESD concepts can be inserted. Below is a comparison of the traditional curriculum and the Category 2 ESD curriculum.

Comparison of the traditional curriculum and the ESD curriculum

Under the three ESD themes of environment, society, and economy, traditional education from preschool to secondary school uses the subjects of geography, sciences, and biology for ENVIRONMENT; social studies, history, family, community, government and languages for SOCIETY; and math, consumerism, economy, business enterprise, and home economics for ECONOMICS.

The SEA-CLLSD ESD curricula from preschool to professional high school for ENVIRONMENT includes the Cosmic Organization, the source of the Basic Needs of Man, Man and the Biosphere Management, Climate Change and Disaster Management. For SOCIETY, subjects of Lifelong Literacy education, “Call to Independence” within the four Periods of Child Development from birth to 18 years, Human Rights and Democracy, Governance, History, and Languages. For ECONOMY, subjects of Home Economics, Economic Independence (Tech-Voc), Family as consumers and producers, Interdependence of Man. (For example, a bowl of rice is produced by farmers, millers, packers, wholesale distributors, retailers in markets, groceries. Numerous drivers transport the goods until it is eaten by the family employing a dozen people approximately.)

The summer and autumn of ESD

In the western hemisphere including Australia, one sees the visible transformation of life through the seasonal changes. Acquiring ESD may be symbolized by the growth of a tree.

If the first half of DESD 2005-2010 is springtime, the sprouting of tiny buds in the variety of trees is accompanied by the new life among animals – bunnies, fawns, bear cubs, birdlings, etc. A poet describes this onset of life as “a sacred reserve of energy whose roots deep in the earth carry within them the power of growth.”

This season of hope is celebrated in the feast of Easter. By summer, the blossoms fall off giving way to the abundance of fruits, which lasts until autumn.

Let us hope that the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development will result in bearing the rich fruits of human sustainability.

(Reference: Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit, 2006)

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