THIRD AUNP ROUND TABLE MEETING Manila, 28-31 August 2005

1. THIRD AUNP ROUND TABLE MEETINGManila, 28-31 August 2005 REGIONAL COOPERATION IN A GLOBALISING WORLD: ENHANCING UNIVERSITY AND PRIVATE SECTOR COOPERATION,PARTNERSHIPS AND INSTITUTIONAL LINKAGES

2. EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

3. DEFINING ESD ESD provides “opportunities to learn the lifestyles, behaviours and values necessary to create a sustainable future” (UNESCO, A Situational Analysis of Education for Sustainable Development in the Asia Pacific Region, 2005)

4. ESD PILLARS • ENVIRONMENT • ECONOMY • SOCIETY • CULTURE: “as an essential additional and underlying dimension”

5. IMPLEMENTATION PERSPECTIVES • Socio-Cultural: human rights, peace and human security, gender equality, cultural diversity and intercultural understanding, health, HIV/AIDS, Governance • Environmental: natural resources, climate change, rural transformation, sustainable urbanization, disaster prevention and mitigation

6. IMPLEMENTATION PERSPECTIVES • Economic: poverty reduction, corporate responsibility and accountability, market economy

7. UN DECADE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT • Underline central role of education and learning in the pursuit of SD • Facilitate networking, exchange, and interaction among SD stakeholders • Assist in refining and promoting the SD vision through all forms of learning and public awareness

8. UN DECADE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT • Foster increased quality learning and education for SD • Develop strategies at every level to strengthen capacity in ESD

9. SEVEN ESD STRATEGIES • Advocacy and Vision-Building • Consultation and Ownership • Partnership and Networks • Capacity-Building and Training • Research and Innovation • Information and Communication Technologies • Monitoring and Evaluation

10. SD ISSUES IN SEA • Appropriate Development and Improvement in Quality of Life -- Diversity of National Challenges -- Disparities between and within countries • Opennes to Economic Change • -- Ecological consequences

11. SD ISSUES • Urbanization -- Expansion of Primate Cities -- Managing Megacities • Managing Population Growth

12. PROGRESSING ESD IN SEA • Promoting and Improving Basic Education • Reorienting Existing Education Programmes • -- strengthening science and technology education • -- improving quality and scope of vocational education • -- developing competence in ICT skills

13. PROGRESSING ESD • Strengthening Framework for Education Review “direct and indirect impacts of poverty and uneven development on both the natural and cultural environment, as well as on human resources, social stability, peace, and people’s quality of life should provide a focus for the development of ESD.”

14. PERSPECTIVES ON ESD • Education for Sustainable Development transcends education, understood as formal education in schools • Many elements of EST are already being implemented. Many elements of the ESD effort remain contentious: Lifestyles, Behaviors, Values”

15. PERSPECTIVES ON ESD • ESD continues to require an advocacy effort

16. SEAMEO PERSPECTIVE • Focus on Quality and Equity in Education (EFA and MDG Context) • SEAMEO Network of 15 Regional Centres in 8 ASEAN Countries: Agriculture, Tropical Biology, Tropical Medicine, History and Culture, Archaeology and Fine Arts, Language, Distance Education, VocTech Education, Educational Management, Training, and Innovations, Tertiary Education

17. SEAMEO CENTRES: AREAS OF ENGAGEMENT • HIV/AIDS • Biodiversity • Food Safety and Security • Cultural Diversity and Peace • ICT • Special Education • HRD

18. ROLE OF HEI • Capacity-Building • Technology Transfer

19. CHALLENGE TO SD “LOBBY” • Michael Crichton, State of Fear, Avon Books, 2004. (Andromeda Strain, Lost World, Jurassic Park, Congo, TimeLine) Footnotes. 30-page bibliography

20. CRICHTON: CONTESTING ENVIRONMENTALIST CLAIMS • All sides overstate the extent of existing knowledge [about the environment] and its degree of certainty. • All claims about global warming are no more than guesses. “The computer models vary by 400 percent, de facto proof that nobody knows.” (626) • 200 years of false alarms about impending resource scarcity.

21. CRICHTON: CHALLENGE • “The current near-hysterical preoccupation with safety is at best a waste of resources and a crimp on the human spirit, and at worst an invitation to totalitarianism. Public education is desperately needed. (627)

22. CRICHTON CHALLENGE • Most environmental “principles” (such as sustainable development or the precautionary principle) have the effect of preserving the economic advantages of the West and thus constitute modern imperialism toward the developing world. It is a nice way of saying, “We got ours and we don’t want you to get yours, because you’ll cause too much pollution.”

23. CRICHTON CHALLENGE • Need more people working in the field, in the actual environment, and fewer people behind computer screens. Need more scientists and many fewer lawyers. (628)

24. CRICHTON CHALLENGE • Need for nonpartisan, blinded funding mechanism to conduct policy research. “Those who fund research– whether a drug company, a government agency or an environmental organization– always have a particular outcome in mind. . . environmental organization “studies” are every bit as biased and suspect as industry “studies.” (629)

25. CRICHTON: STATE OF FEAR • Although a work of fiction, likely to reach a wider audience than academic research pieces on Sustainable Development • Raises questions that need to be addressed. • Suggest a research and advocacy agenda for Higher Education Institutions