The Rio Declaration
"Education for Sustainable Development"
The World Conference on Environmental and Development 1992
Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.
The Johannesburg Declaration at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 built on this aspiration and expressed the commitment of world leaders “to build a humane, equitable and caring global society cognizant of the need for human dignity for all.”
Education as the foundation of sustainable development was reaffirmed at the Johannesburg Summit, as was the commitment embodied in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 of the Rio Summit, 1992. The Plan of Implementation establishes the linkages between the Millennium Development Goals on universal primary education for both boys and girls, but especially girls, and the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All. The creation of a gender-sensitive education system at all levels and of all types – formal, non-formal and informal – to reach the unserved is emphasized as a crucial component of education for sustainable development. Education is recognized as a tool for addressing important questions such as rural development, health care, community involvement, HIV/AIDS, the environment, and wider ethical/legal issues such as human values and human rights.
There is no universal model of education for sustainable development. While there will be overall agreement on the concept, there will be nuanced differences according to local contexts, priorities and approaches. Each country has to define its own priorities and actions. The goals, emphases and processes must, therefore, be locally defined to meet the local environmental, social and economic conditions in culturally appropriate ways. Education for sustainable development is equally relevant and critical for both developed and developing countries.
The underlying values which education for sustainable development must promote include at least the following:
- Respect for the dignity and human rights of all people throughout the world and a commitment to social and economic justice for all;
- Respect for the human rights of future generations and a commitment to intergenerational responsibility;
- Respect and care for the greater community of life in all its diversity which involves the protection and restoration of the Earth’s ecosystems;
- Respect for cultural diversity and a commitment to build locally and globally a culture of tolerance, non-violence and peace.
This represents a new vision of education, a vision that helps people of all ages better understand the world in which they live, addressing the complexity and interconnectedness of problems such as poverty, wasteful consumption, environmental degradation, urban decay, population growth, health, conflict and the violation of human rights that threaten our future. This vision of education emphasises a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to developing the knowledge and skills needed for a sustainable future as well as changes in values, behaviour, and lifestyles. This requires us to reorient education systems, policies and practices in order to empower everyone, young and old, to make decisions and act in culturally appropriate and locally relevant ways to redress the problems that threaten our common future. In this way, people of all ages can become empowered to develop and evaluate alternative visions of a sustainable future and to fulfil these visions through working creatively with others.
Education for sustainable development will aim to demonstrate the following features:
- Interdisciplinary and holistic: learning for sustainable development embedded in the whole curriculum, not as a separate subject;
- Values-driven: it is critical that the assumed norms – the shared values and principles underpinning sustainable development – are made explicit so that that can be examined, debated, tested and applied;
- Critical thinking and problem solving: leading to confidence in addressing the dilemmas and challenges of sustainable development;
- Multi-method: word, art, drama, debate, experience, … different pedagogies which model the processes. Teaching that is geared simply to passing on knowledge should be recast into an approach in which teachers and learners work together to acquire knowledge and play a role in shaping the environment of their educational institutions;
- Participatory decision-making: learners participate in decisions on how they are to learn;
- Applicability: the learning experiences offered are integrated in day to day personal and professional life.
- Locally relevant: addressing local as well as global issues, and using the language(s) which learners most commonly use. Concepts of sustainable development must be carefully expressed in other languages – languages and cultures say things differently, and each language has creative ways of expressing new concepts.
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