Abstract
This article outlines trends towards education for a sustainable future in the Asia-Pacific region. The paper begins with an overview of the present state of the natural and social environment in the Asia-Pacific region. This is followed by an account and examples of educational responses to the challenges of sustainable development. The main theme developed here is that countries and organisations in the region responded well to the first phase of challenges of sustainable development. Examples of innovative ways in which this has been done are provided to illustrate this. However, the analysis of these trends, which is presented in the next section of the article, indicates that these innovations may represent a case of ‘innovation without change’ as there is little evidence in the region of meaningful change in young people’s lives or in the broad reorientation of education practices, systems and structures that is necessary for education to support the processes of sustainable development at national or regional levels. In this article, this wider reorientation of education is called the second phase of education for a sustainable future. The article concludes with a brief case study of one project in the region which is using teacher education as a starting point to provide the necessary capacity development needed to support this second phase of educational reform.
Professor Osamu Abe (University of Saitama and Director of the Environmental Education Project of the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies) and Dr Bishnu Bhandari, (Research Officer, Environmental Education Project of the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies) provided valuable assistance on an earlier draft of this chapter.
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Fien, J., Heck, D. (2003). Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development. In: Keeves, J.P., et al. International Handbook of Educational Research in the Asia-Pacific Region. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3368-7_39
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3368-7_39
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