UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development began on January 1, 2005 and aims to promote education as a basis for a more sustainable society and to integrate sustainable development into education at all levels and all areas of life including communities, the workplace and society in general. More details can be found on UNESCO's website.
The Scottish Government has launched a web-based Action Plan - Learning for Change - setting out the actions to be taken forward in the second half of the Decade. This is supported by supporting sections on schools, universities and colleges, and Community Learning and Development. Information on recent sectoral activity can be found by clicking on these links.
To continue the strong collaboration and engagement with stakeholders which was a feature of the first half of the Decade, each of the three areas set up a steering group to oversee progress in delivering its actions, and a continuing programme of conferences involving all sectors of education in Scotland has been delivered, the latest of which, "Collaboration - not competition", was held on 23 January 2013.
The conference explored why collaboration can be more successful than competition in delivering education for sustainable development, using the cooperative movement as a case study. Workshops were held examining how to bring more cooperation into the workplace, with facilitators from Eco-Schools Scotland, the Workers' Educational Association, the Cooperative Education Trust and the Conservation Volunteers.
The conference also heard updates on Learning for Change and the UN Regional Centre for Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (RCE Scotland).