at the World Environmental Education Congress, Durban
3 July 2007
Guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a privilege to address you today. South Africa is pleased to host the
World Environmental Education Congress on the first occasion that the congress
comes to Africa.
Your presence here today shows that you are honouring a variety of
commitments made by a number of countries over the past three decades to teach
our children about sustainable development.
For example, in 2002 South Africa hosted the World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg. One of the actions agreed to at the World Summit
was the declaration of a United Nations (UN) Decade on Education for
Sustainable Development. The declaration emphasised the important role that
education plays in achieving sustainable development.
As a country, we were proud to host the World Summit. This congress will
again provide an important forum for a multi sectoral meeting of professionals
from governments, global institutions, business and civil society
organisations. The congress will focus on the prominence of southern African
environmental education and its unique sustainable development and educational
challenges.
The theme for World Environmental Education Congress 2007 is 'Learning in a
changing world.' The congress plans to encourage reflection on the influence of
globalisation on learning and also to consider what contribution environmental
education can make to processes of learning in a changing world.
A southern African workshop was hosted by United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in November last year to support
the development of national education for sustainable development action plans.
These action plans set out the positions that governments will take to
re-orientate their education and training systems towards sustainable
development.
Environment and the urgency to do something to protect it, moreover, it has
gained a lot of momentum recently through public campaigns, the most prominent
of which has made the urgent issue of global warming.
The International Panel on Climate Change concludes that the global climate
is changing at a rate unmatched in the past one thousand years and that this
change is due to human activity. If the environment change is due to human
activity, then we have to acknowledge that human activity can best be
influenced by education!
I understand that this keynote address will kick start a special panel
discussion on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Let me
first say what we, in South Africa, have been engaged with and then leave you
to discuss whether our challenges have any resonance elsewhere.
The South African Constitution stipulates, "Everyone has the right to have
the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations,
through reasonable legislative and other measures that secure ecologically
sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting
justifiable economic and social development."
Sustainable development, according to Unesco, "Provides a way of
articulating the overall social project and aim of development, alongside other
over arching goals such as peace, human rights and economic viability."
Unesco continues, "Education for sustainable development focuses therefore
on the underlying principles and values conveyed through education and is more
concerned with the content and purpose of education and more broadly of
learning of all kinds. Conceiving and designing education for sustainable
development challenges all forms of educational provision to adopt practices
and approaches which fosters the values of sustainable development."
As part of its transformation objectives, South Africa has adopted a
multi-sectoral approach towards sustainable development as articulated in
national policies and legislation developed for the environmental and tourism
sector, the water and forestry sector, the health sector, the land affairs
sector, the trade and industry sector and others.
South Africa is signatory to many international agreements to implement
sustainable development principles and practices and has ratified both Agenda
21, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation, signed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
2002.
In Libreville, in March 2006, African Ministers of Education made a
commitment to implement the United Nations (UN) Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development through a set of targeted activities in our
countries.
Our commitment emphasised the need to align the UN Decade on Education for
Sustainable Development activities with the key policy initiatives such as the
MDGs, the UN declaration on the New Partnership for African Development
(Nepad), the African Union's (AU's) Second Decade on Education Plan of Action,
the Dakar Framework for Action aimed at achieving the education for All
goals.
Our commitment recognised the persistence of conflicts and human rights
violations as well as pandemics such as HIV and AIDS.
Our commitment acknowledged that education for sustainable development
"contributes to sustainable livelihoods and sustainable lifestyles,
environmental sustainability and health promotion and gender equality."
We have to ask then, 'what does this mean for education and specifically
what does it mean for education in South Africa?'
Environmental education contributes to transformation and building a
democracy through better education. Education can be improved significantly by
promoting active learning in and about the environment, learning that deepens
the relevance of classroom study and strengthens school and community
links.
The development of environmental literacy is a key concern in an emerging
democracy, for it is only when people are knowledgeable about environmental
issues and competent to address them, which they can consider appropriate
development options and contribute to sustainable living patterns.
Over and above the policy direction, a number of projects have been crafted
to ensure that environmental education is supported.
For this reason and because we acknowledge the crucial role played by our
teachers when they teach our learners, we have brought 45 teachers from across
the nine provinces to participate in discussions at this congress. I am sure
there is many more teachers present here who agree with the Department in
ensuring that all learners are taught to be responsible for and towards the
environment.
South Africa has committed to educational transformation since 1994. Central
to this transformation process has been the objective of poverty alleviation
and sustainable development. The National Curriculum Statements (R-12) have
incorporated the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable
development into a human rights/social justice framework.
Our National Environmental Education Project, launched in 2000 and ending in
2006, aimed to respond to the White Paper on Education and Training for:
"Environmental education, involving an interdisciplinary, integrated and
active approach to learning must be a vital element of all levels and
programmes of the education and training system in order to create
environmentally literate and active citizens and ensure that all South
Africans, present and future, enjoy a decent quality of life through the
sustainable use of resources."
Environmentally literate citizens are able to consider the ecological
sustainability of development to actively work to reverse environmental
degradation and to manage and use the country's natural resource base more
wisely and democratically.
Environmentally literate citizens can use information, legislation and
community action to protect and improve human and environmental health.
The curriculum calls for a specific focus on the environment.
The curriculum requires that the environment should shape teaching and
learning across all learning areas and for all grades in South Africa.
For example, through the health promotion learning area teachers assist
learners to develop a critical awareness of personal, community and
environmental health. Through this learning area, learners will be able to
explore and report on ways to protect the quality of food and water in various
contexts. Learners will also be able to investigate a local environmental
health problem using different data sources and plan a strategy to address the
problem.
Addressing the National Environmental Education Project Colloquium in 2005,
Minister Naledi Pandor said the following,
"Environmental education is not just about trees, soil and water.
Environmental education is about the impact of the lifestyle choices we make
about the decisions we take that affect the air we breathe and the food we eat.
We have a responsibility to teach our future adult citizens to make better
lifestyle choices not only for themselves but also for their families, their
local communities and in the end the global biophysical environment that forms
the foundation of our existence."
There is also a need to work closely with other national stakeholders to
ensure that sustainable development principles are incorporated into the
National Skills Development Strategy and into public awareness programmes.
What role is the broader community playing?
In order to broaden the democratic process and to promote ownership of
schools and other institutions and programmes, the government involves all
stakeholders in consultative structures.
In addition, we need more wide ranging partnership agreements.
One of the principal strengths of business is its ability to mobilise extra
budgetary funds. In contrast to public funds, which are largely committed to
maintaining the national education system, these moneys are able to be deployed
with far greater flexibility.
Only last month Nedbank won the main prize at the Cannes Advertising Awards
for an innovative solar billboard at a school in Alexandra. The billboard
reads, "If only a bank really did give power to the people." And it does. The
billboard gives power to the MC Weiler School in Alexandra, saves the school
about R2 000 a month in electricity and powers up a kitchen that feeds 1 000
children daily.
Power to the people. Really. A bank?
In addition to the abundant energy of our people, we are not short of
sunshine or advertising ideas in South Africa.
I walked through the exhibition myself and saw many interesting, practical
things.
The challenge then is how to consider current perspectives on the
environment and through education bring about changes in the global and local
contexts so that we will see "learning in a changing world" yield a different
world.
We are looking forward to working with our colleagues in the family of
nations as we seek to build better lives for all.
Thank you!
Issued by: Department of Education
3 July 2007
