International Environment Forum

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One definition of the objective of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is "the promotion of values and ethics through education at different levels in order to make an impact on people's lifestyles and behaviour and help to build a sustainable future" (www.unesco.org/education/esd). Another is the development of "skills in critical thinking, negotiations, scientific understanding and openness to the views of others" (Living Earth). Each definition reflects a necessary but not sufficient condition for ESD. In fact they represent two complementary aspects of human development - on the one hand the development of intellectual capacities, and on the other of human qualities or virtues. One without the other is like a bird with one wing: intellectual development without values leads to inequitable development and ignores the importance of human motivation. But without skills and knowledge relevant to local conditions, development will continue to depend on the priorities of outsiders.

The 'System of Tutorial Learning'- SAT (Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial) for short - is a programme of non-formal rural secondary education developed since the early 1970s in Colombia by an NGO called FUNDAEC, and more recently in Honduras and other Latin American countries. The instigators of SAT saw education as the key to more self-reliant community development; that for the majority of rural children, education does not go beyond primary school - usually because families cannot afford to keep them at school; and that the formal education system suffers from 'urban bias' and a materialistic value system which encourages the young to migrate to the cities.

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The establishment of a just society maintained by noble individuals has been the goal of human civilizations throughout the ages. It has not, however, been easy to agree upon what justice is or what characterizes a noble, morally astute individual. It has been even more difficult to achieve consensus as to what form of development will lead to such a goal. Rapid economic advancement has for decades been the guiding star of development. Today's global community has finally begun focusing upon the need for "sustainable development" which includes social, economic and spiritual development; development which encompasses the transformation of individuals as well as man-made social structures and markets.

This "focusing" on sustainable development has taken numerous forms since the international gathering in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the initiating of the Agenda 21 action plan. And as always, the most common response to any call for a better tomorrow is: educate the children.. . . education being, of course, much more than just transferring information. Education in such a context must be seen as the systematized, value-based process of socialization.

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Introduction

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The Government of Brazil is convening a Dialogue series with the aim of bringing together civil society, the scientific community and academia to contribute ideas and suggestions on sustainable development. Conclusions and recommendations from the Dialogues will be conveyed directly to the heads of State and Government gathering for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development taking place in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on June 20-22. The public is now invited to vote on its preferences from 100 proposals drawn from 10,000 contributions. The third proposal under "Unemployment, Decent Work and Migrations" about managing enviromental migrations came from an IEF submission.

For an excellent summary of the outcomes of Rio+20 (the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012), see the article by Maria Ivanova "The Contested Legacy of Rio+20" at http://uncsd.iisd.org/guest-articles/the-contested-legacy-of-rio20/.

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INTRODUCTION

Sustainable development is an anthropocentric concept focussed on human well-being, now and it the future, through development that respects the planet's environmental constraints and potentials. Yet the debate launched by Amartya Sen and others some 30 years ago on "human development" remains narrow. There are entire areas missing, mainly because the debate has been framed largely in economic and materialistic terms, when we know that "development" to achieve “well-being” is a far more complex undertaking that has important psychological, social, cultural and spiritual dimensions. The recent recognition of the need to look beyond GDP (Stiglitz 2009) has now been acknowledged by governments at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in June 2012.