ROLE OF EDUCATION IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
ROLE OF EDUCATION IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
By NJOKA John Nyaga, Kenya. (jnyaga2003@yahoo.co.uk)
INTRODUCTION
Sustainable development is that development which will meet the present needs of the community without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Environmental education involves among other things the provision of information, recognizing values, clarifying concepts etc in order to develop skills and attitudes that enable the community to understand and appreciate the relationship between their cultures and their physical surroundings.
At international fora, attempts have been made to promote environmental education. In the year 1975 in Belgrade, the program for international environmental education was started followed by the conference in Tsibilisi in 1977, Nevada 1979, Moscow 1987, ….. Since then the council of European countries has twice called on member countries to advance on environmental education in all sectors of education.
There is required a dominant policy to ensure that the findings of research on environmental science are properly applied to ensure that the world is safe for further development with no further destruction of the natural resources.
It is therefore necessary to involve the players in political, economic and cultural sectors in designing environmental programs. By doing this, we will notice that all these players have turned environmentalists and we can expect a conflict of interest of style in the approach of environmental matters. This is because sustainable development is a contested territory with its ownership disputed by forces with very diverse interests.
Its thus difficult to foresee any slackening of the effort on those who will continue to impose development to suit their ends invoking “modernity, national integration, economic growth and other slogans” (Adams 1990, p199). With challenges as these, education is a must in order to bring these interests groups together and
By NJOKA John Nyaga, Kenya. (jnyaga2003@yahoo.co.uk)
INTRODUCTION
Sustainable development is that development which will meet the present needs of the community without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Environmental education involves among other things the provision of information, recognizing values, clarifying concepts etc in order to develop skills and attitudes that enable the community to understand and appreciate the relationship between their cultures and their physical surroundings.
At international fora, attempts have been made to promote environmental education. In the year 1975 in Belgrade, the program for international environmental education was started followed by the conference in Tsibilisi in 1977, Nevada 1979, Moscow 1987, ….. Since then the council of European countries has twice called on member countries to advance on environmental education in all sectors of education.
There is required a dominant policy to ensure that the findings of research on environmental science are properly applied to ensure that the world is safe for further development with no further destruction of the natural resources.
It is therefore necessary to involve the players in political, economic and cultural sectors in designing environmental programs. By doing this, we will notice that all these players have turned environmentalists and we can expect a conflict of interest of style in the approach of environmental matters. This is because sustainable development is a contested territory with its ownership disputed by forces with very diverse interests.
Its thus difficult to foresee any slackening of the effort on those who will continue to impose development to suit their ends invoking “modernity, national integration, economic growth and other slogans” (Adams 1990, p199). With challenges as these, education is a must in order to bring these interests groups together and