APPENDIX 4
Memorandum from the Centre for Alternative
Technology
1. ALL RESPONSES
WELCOME
The Committee has made clear that it is pleased
to receive any submissions and evidence.
Why should:
— learning play a role in sustainable
development?
Learning is vital to sustainable development.
People will not engage in action to support sustainable development
unless they understand it. Partial understanding leads to action
which is superficial in its impacts.
— education reforms take more account
of sustainable development?
It is extremely difficult for most teachers
to embed learning about sustainable development into their teaching
unless their action is led and supported by the curriculum. Young
people that we have been working with recently have said very
strongly that they think there should be a far greater element
of sustainable development in the school curriculum, both addressed
directly as a specific topic and also through different subjects.
They also called very forcefully for opportunities to voice the
opinions of young people about sustainable development and they
need active school councils as one way of doing this.
— the Government publish and consult
on the draft national strategy for Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD) produced by the Sustainable Development Education Panel?
The government needs to know what teachers,
pupils and other concerned people think about the strategy.
What evidence is there that:
— the Government is effectively using
formal and informal learning to support its sustainable development
strategy?
Not much. Most young people feel that there
is very little presented to them in school and very few opportunities
outside school.
— education for sustainable development
is at the heart of the work of the DfES; that it is co-ordinated
across the full range of the Department's responsibilities; or
that it is addressed effectively within Departmental policies
and strategies?
Very little.
— other Government Departments and
Agencies are effectively supporting the role of education in sustainable
development?
DEFRA clearly have a commitment to encouraging
it.
February 2003
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