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Respect for difference and diversity includes the
following four principles: first, respect for difference
as the motive force of SD; second, biodiversity protec-
tion as the material base of SD; third, carrying forward
local culture as the important pre-condition of SD; and
fourth, respect for cultural diversity as the spiritual
impetus of SD.
Respect for the environment includes respect for
biological survival and for environmental protection
as a human responsibility. Respect for the resources
of the planet we inhabit includes two principles: that
saving resources is the basic behavioural criterion of
SD lifestyle, and that the cyclical economy is a model
of SD.
Public education policies are made on the basis
of conducting scientific educational research to
promote ESD
The second creative characteristic of ESD in China
is that scientific research should guide and gradually
promote the making and implementation of public poli-
cies of ESD.
The ESD project group in China has attached great
importance to basic contradictions and problems
raised in practical activities over the past ten years
or more. Through investigation, literature research
and experimental studies, they have achieved posi-
tive results and evaluated them through assisting
more and more experimental schools to work out and
put into practice plans for ESD and on this basis,
effectively helped governments at different levels to
stipulate public policies for ESD which, in return,
have further promoted the establishment of good
external environments and favourable spaces for
broad development of ESD.
On the basis of successful experiences in organ-
izing and guiding the experimental schools to carry
out ESD projects across the country, the group has
seized historical opportunities, such as when the
government of Beijing re-oriented the functions
of Beijing Municipality in the city development
plan, and the central government re-formulated the
National Planning Program. Members of the group
have organized expert groups and principals of some
ESD experiment at schools to put forward proposals
and suggestions to the State Council and the Beijing
government on three occasions, clearly pointing
out that ESD should be put in place in the national
and Beijing educational development strategies
and governments. Now ESD is part of the National
Planning Program, which signals a shift into the
national public educational policy from a scientific
educational research project.
Regional educational reform and renewal should be
pushed forward to meet the needs of local sustain-
able development
The third creative characteristic of ESD in China is that
China has actively formulated ESD plans, regulations
Sustainable development requires changes to the content of educa-
tion in the new century. Implementation of ESD requires education
to accomplish its mode change to meet sustainable development
needs. Its main tasks are:
• Orienting education reform
• Promoting capacity-building for sustainable development in
education reform
• Promoting education reform to meet the requirements of
sustainable development
• Researching ideological education reform to meet the need to
build a new ethic of sustainable development
• Building schools into ESD educational setups and pilot bases to
promote school building on the basis of the idea of sustainable
development
• Developing education from habitual practice to scientific creation
and discussing and putting in place education reform through
scientific development.
In other words, it is necessary for China’s education to make more
contributions to the development of humankind through promoting
ESD, since ESD is a key theme of education that faces the whole world .
Expounding the importance and basic meanings of values in sustainable
development
UNESCO’s UK Education for Sustainable Development Coordinating
Group and Forum has defined the DESD as having respect at its
centre: “respect for others, including those of present and future
generations, for difference and diversity, for the environment, for
the resources of the planet we inhabit”. The basic concept of respect
for others includes three principles: first, taking humanity as its
base; second, harmonious all-round human development as the
final goal of sustainable development (SD); and third, respecting the
present as the necessary condition for respecting future generations.
Presentation at an exchange conference on the social action project: ‘Energy
Saving and Emission Reduction and Schools of Sustainable Development’
Image: Nat. Comm. UNESCO China