Education 'about', 'for' or 'as' Sustainable Development?

Writing BananaStock Ltd
© BananaStock Ltd

These different terms can be seen as reflecting a range of educational responses to sustainable development. Briefly:

  • education about sustainability – sustainable development has a content/knowledge bias and can be incorporated quite easily within the existing educational model.
  • education for sustainability – sustainable development includes content, but goes further to include values and skills. This involves some changes to the existing model.
  • education as sustainability – sustainable development is a ‘transformative learning response’ which increasingly facilitates a ‘transformative learning process’.

"These progressive responses, from accommodation, through reformation to transformation may be made at any level – by an individual educator, an institution, or a whole educational system" (Sustainable education: Re-visioning learning and change, Stephen Sterling, Green Books/Schumacher Society, 2001).