Learning about developing sustainably is a far cry from discovering how to actually achieve it. Taking it home and owning the process is the way forward, allowing people to make the changes and adaptations they will need to live in a sustainable manner for a better future.

While the concept of sustainable development is ultimately a question of our own survival it has expanded since its original 1972 definition. Beyond the most basic premise, an overlap of economic, environmental and societal aims, sustainability now reaches out to include governance, culture and spirituality. The latter lends a wider aspect than strictly religious considerations.

At the 1992 Rio conference, Agenda 21 focused on local action and identified the need to reorient education toward sustainable development rather than being restricted purely to development in isolation from other concerns.

Education for sustainable development (ESD) has evolved from earlier disciplines: Systems thinking is an approach to problem solving which takes the overall system as well as its parts into account – a hallmark of sustainability. Added to this is service learning, an educational approach balancing formal instruction with opportunities to serve in the community for a complete learning experience.

Knowledge on its own is not enough to bring changes in behaviour. At a University of Malta symposium last month, Dr Mark Mifsud, who has carried out research on sustainable development with environmental education, noted that it was easier to examine scientific knowledge than to examine values.

Environmental education has been a special area of interest at the University’s Faculty of Education since 1991. We have come a long way since the early days when only four Structure Plan polices related to environmental education. Milestones include the setting up of Ekoskola in 2002, and two years later the Centre for Environmental Education and Research (CEER) was formed.

Unesco marked the decade for environmental education, starting in 2004. Since 2012 the University has offered a master’s degree course in education for sustainable development (ESD), with the next course starting in October.

Opening the proceedings of the symposium, chairperson of the national strategy on education for sustainable development and CEER director Prof. Paul Pace, spoke on the need to change entire perspectives rather than merely trying to teach the subject. It boils down to seeing students as individuals and empowering the learner instead of simply filling them with facts.

Building on last year’s symposium, which focused on local research within ESD, the spotlight this year was on a more long-term strategy.

The world today faces many problems. There is unequal distribution of resources, with the rich using up most of them while the poor use hardly any. Is the sustainable development vision that there should ideally be ‘enough resources for all forever’, an extremist, utopian view? Can we go on living like this? The way we produce and consume is being called into question.

Can we go on living like this? The way we produce and consume is being called into question

A particular challenge for educators raised at the symposium is the ‘total detachment’ seen in students from primary right through to secondary level.

As pointed out by Dr Mifsud: “Students who have never seen soil as they live in a penthouse are detached because they may be spending too much time in the digital world.”

Teachers present confirmed that the traditional family outing in the countryside is dying out, and addictive gaming has captured children who live in virtual worlds of their own.

These children are unable to feel that the environment, for example the water crisis, may become a problem for them if they collectively fail to take action, encouraging peers to join them, on the path to sustainable development. They seem past caring and beyond reach when it comes to the real world.

One teacher acknowledged that students have to cope with an overloaded syllabus. She expressed the hope that if the impact of their exams could somehow be reduced then students could find it easier to become more involved in the need to develop sustainably.

Educating for sustainable development can be effective at any age as problems have to be solved in society as a whole, not just in schools. It is important to foster a type of ESD literacy, a new way of looking at things and developing solutions.

Dr Jason Bonnici, who is on the Ministry for Sustainable Development, Environment and Climate Change steering committee of the new national park at Zonqor Point spoke on the value of youth organisations networking together as one team.

While there was room for more professionalism in the NGO sector he said, there is still room for the amateur. It appears that all hands are welcome in the push toward greater sustainablility.

Students who spend too much time in the digital world become can become detached from the environment – CEER Symposium on Educating for Sustainable Development, University of Malta.

Vince Caruana, a full time lecturer at CEER and active campaigner cautioned against sending untrained people into schools.

CEER project manager Natalino Fenech referred to the valuable experience that students from a number of schools were gaining through voluntary exchange projects. However, as noted by Keith Buhagiar, besides being a cross-curriculum subject, sustainable development principles had to be implemented by all teachers and school administrators as well as all students. Dr Buhagiar is head of department of environmental studies and history at the Department of Education.

J.D. Farrugia, who has a background in environmental management and volunteer training programmes, spoke on the perception of civil society as being “a bit skewed”.

“People don’t feel they are part of civil society. Often the public is of the opinion that NGOs should do this and that, yet people need to develop a sense of responsibility to do something themselves.”

Farrugia remarked that NGOs such as Nature Trust are sometimes seen as an opposing force. However, it is often left to the NGOs to fill gaps, doing the jobs government has not managed to tackle entirely, such as environmental education.

A national strategy is important for greater co-ordination between all parties.

Apart from the University-based CEER, the Ministry for Sustainable Development, Environment and Climate Change is involved together with the Education Ministry. Working together as a joint effort further promotes community-based environmental education.

Dr Carmen Sammut spoke on the role of the media with regard to the national strategy.

Since publication of the national strategy is now imminent, a wide-ranging discussion on the various issues involved was timely. Public consultation on the document ‘Nurturing a Sustainable Society’ runs jointly under CEER along with the education and environment ministries until the end of April.

Next year Malta will be hosting a conference on education for sustainable development and life-long learning.