Tomorrow Today

[

] 178

The Dakar Framework for Action 2000 underscores the impor-

tance of tapping into each individual’s talent and potential and

encourages the development of the individual’s personality to

improve lives and transform societies, now and in the future. These

elements find pride of place in the question of quality of education,

which in turn is at the heart of ESD.

The issue of quality education underscores the principle of learner-

friendliness. To this end, it concentrates on the holistic development

of individuals, empowering them to participate and perform in every

learning environment that they encounter. By focusing on the needs

of every learner, quality education lends support to the aims of the

human capability approach.

The human capability approach: tapping into human potential

The first UNDP Human Development Report in 1990 proposed that

human welfare should be considered the goal of development and

that there was a perceived need ‘‘to shift the focus of development

economics from national income accounting to people centered

policies’’.

The Human Development Index (HDI) was a result of

deliberations around this concept. It was Amartya Sen’s work on

capabilities and functionings that provided the underlying concep-

tual framework for the development of the HDI. Sen roped in ideas

and issues that were excluded from the traditional discourse on the

economics of welfare and brought in a whole new dimension of the

realization of full human potential.

Education is valuable as an end in itself and has been identified

by Sen as a capability to meet basic needs. For education to fully

enhance development, it is required that the learning needs of all

are met through equitable access to education of such quality that

it leads to learning outcomes that enhance the freedom to do, to be

and to know. To this end, the capability approach must be seen in

terms of learning outcomes.

The capability approach looks at what education empowers

people to achieve. This fits well with the intentions of ESD – to help

people solve problems and to think critically and in a systemic way.

It would be an element of consideration for developing

the assessment framework for ESD learning outcomes.

The linkage between quality education, ESD and

the human capability approach are evident. To this

end, the work around indicators for quality educa-

tion (among a variety of other issues), which has been

developed over the years to inform the development

of the

Global Monitoring Report

for Education for

All, is another element that could provide support to

develop the assessment framework for ESD learning

outcomes.

UNESCO’s post-decade role

The linkages between the four elements described

above certainly have common ground but there is much

work to be done before they could be used together

to develop a tool for assessing ESD learning outcomes.

If change to ensure a sustainable future is what lies at

the heart of the education for sustainable development

enterprise, then it is essential to equip people with a

mechanism to assess what (if anything) has changed,

and whether it is taking them to the desired goal of a

sustainable future.

As lead agency for the decade, UNESCO has initiated

the process of transformation by promoting, imple-

menting and advocating for ESD. If this momentum is

to be maintained, UNESCO needs to initiate thinking

around the issue of its contribution post-decade.

His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales told the

Copenhag en Climate Summit in December 2009: “Just

as mankind has the power to push the world to the

brink, so, too, do we have the power to bring it back

into balance.” UNESCO, on the strength of its work

related to ESD during the Decade as well as beyond it,

has the power to contribute to restoring that balance.

Human development: a key to poverty reduction