The Role of Education for Sustainability in the Sustainable Development Goals—Changing Policy and Practice?

The key focus of this paper is on the crucial role of education and learning in achieving the global shift of policy and practice which is needed in order to implement the sustainable development goals (SDGs). As highlighted in 2015 by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the International Council for Social Science (ISSC) ‘Education has been recognized for many years as a critical factor in addressing environmental and sustainability issues and ensuring human well-being’. This paper will argue that in order to achieve the SDGs it is an imperative to embed education for sustainable development (ESD) within all future policy and practice. It will examine the relationship between Education for All (the focus on basic and primary education in the Millennium Development Goals) and ESD. It will refer to the work of UNESCO in trying to develop synergy between these two policy approaches. It will argue that neo liberal agendas of marketisation and privatisation of education have impeded progress in re orienting systems towards sustainability. However, it will then indicate that there are some small signs that the global paradigm of neo liberalism is beginning to shift and that this will present opportunities to open up space and to highlight the need for ESD. The main focus of this paper will of necessity be on formal education though some reference will be made to the role of informal social learning and non-formal education. This research has been carried out with the support of colleagues in the disciplines of political science and education and has been subject to peer review at a number of fora including a social science seminar series at LSBU, a panel of the specialist group on Environmental Politics at the UK Political Science Association Conference, a research panel at the Uganda EFS Conference and at the Mid West American Political Studies Association Conference. The research process has drawn heavily on the authors’ experience over 21 years of working in the area of education, politics and policy change, it has involved desk based reviews of a large number of UN and UNESCO policy documents and discussions with a number of policy makers and practitioners. The paper also draws on research from a range of countries and makes reference to masters research dissertations by scholars of the MSc Education for Sustainability at LSBU.