Early Childhood Education for Sustainable
Development: The Global Action Programme (GAP)
Social/Cultural
Economic
Environmental
Ingrid Pramling-Samuelsson
Action Agenda Rio 1992
Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 Identified four
major thrusts to begin the work of ESD:
(1) improve basic education,
(2) reorient existing education to address
sustainable development,
(3) develop public understanding,
awareness,
(4) training.
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Early Childhood Education
Gothenburg Recommendations:
 Building upon the everyday experience of children
 Curriculum integration and creativity
 Intergenerational problem solving and solution
seeking
 Promotion of intercultural understanding and
recognition of interdependency
 Involvement of the wider community
 Active citizenship in the early years
 The creation of cultures of sustainability
Davis, J., Engdahl, I., Otieno, L., Pramling Samuelsson, I., Siraj-Blatchford, J., & Valladh, P. (2008)
The Gothenburg Recommendations on Education for Sustainable Development, SWEDESD
ECCE for SD
Should be based on a holistic
perspective, including:
• Safety, nutrition, hygiene, attachment,
stimulation, and communicative
interaction from birth to starting school
ECCE of high quality should be
available, from early years of age,
since it supports:
• The individual child, his/her family and
the society
Access to ECCE
(UNESCO, 2012, 193/209 Countries
http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/GED%20Documents%20C/GED-2012-Complete-Web3.pdf)
OMEP Perspective
To give all children access to ECCE is by
itself a sustainable action
To create ECCE programs framed within
ESD – curricula and pedagogy
• Content related to, environment,
social/cultural and economic questions
• To develop self confidence, collaboration,
critical thinking, problem solving and
creativity, 3Rs
• A pedagogy based on interaction,
communication and relationship – learning
for change (transformative learning)
The UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child
Provides a crucial rationale for ESD in
ECCE:
• Advocacy - taking the child’s perspective –
what is best for each child, and;
• Listen to each child’s own perspective and
creation of meaning
View children as active, competent
agents in their own every-day life
‘Global Action Programme’
UNESCO launched in Nagoya
To provide concrete, practical
commitments to the development of
ESD
The ‘OMEP GAP Commitment’ to
create an OMEP package of materials
for global ‘high quality’ ESD teacher
education.
Presentation details
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UNESCO GAP
The UNESCO GAP programme will run from 2015 to
2019 and aims to to generate and scale up ESD
action to accelerate progress towards sustainable
development.
 Reorienting education and learning so that
everyone has the opportunity to acquire the
values, skills and knowledge that empower them
to contribute to sustainable development.
 Enhancing the role of education and learning in
all relevant agendas, programmes and activities
that promote sustainable development.
UNESCO GAP Network 3
“Building the Capacity of Educators and
trainers”
Includes 4 Intergovernmental organisations, 2
governments organisations and 8
Education/research institutions
Work plan:
• Synergizing the Commitment Activities
of the individual partners
• Scaling-up Commitment Activities and
reaching out to other stakeholders
• Exploring Joint Activities among the
partners
Training Materials
 ESD Definitions and Rational (e.g. What are the
Challenges? What is SD? What is ESD? The Rights of the
Child)
 ESD from Birth to school (Parent and Community
Partnerships, Informal and Non formal education,
Inequality and Social Justice)
 ESD and Environmental, Social and Cultural and
Economics Education
 ESD and Citizenship (Governance, children’s agency,
family and community involvement)
 ESD and Project work – Investigations and problem
solving
 ESD and Resilience (including Disaster Risk Resilience)
 Curriculum Development and Planning – applying the ESD
Rating Scale (with video exemplars)
OMEP GAP
 Summary of the proposed OMEP ECCE GAP Strategy:
 GAP project leader to participate in online and annual
face to face meetings with UNESCO GAP Network
 Continue travel award competitions to generate many
more case studies of good teacher education practice
 GAP presentations at OMEP Regional and World
Conferences to;
 a) present exemplar case studies;
 b) promote the GAP process, and;
 c) report on editorial progress
 Editorial team meetings to be held between open OMEP
GAP meetings
Consultative meeting WEEC 2015
 Teacher education resources should be presented
in the most flexible way - a searchable database
of exemplars and teaching and inservice training
materials (tagged and indexed).
 While copyright free materials should be provided
references should also be made to the best
published sources
 A proforma should be distributed at the
Washington Assembly to collect of source
materials from a broad range of countries
 This process should continue ideally through the
regional conference to ensure the broad range of
exemplars contribute to global awareness
Consultative meeting WEEC 2015
 Volunteers with equally wide representation
should be called for in the creation of an
executive subcommittee to contribute to the
editorial effort
 The materials should provide guidance on how
to develop integrated projects
 Courses may be ‘kitemarked’ or accredited in
partnership with established agencies e.g. Green
Flag
My suggestions to OMEP for GAP
 I will create a subgroup that can guide the work
on GAP and editing the material
 The VP should take responsibilities for making
sure that GAP work-shops take place at regional
OMEP meetings (WASH)
 To continue the travel awards, since that has
been a good way to generate interest, AND
because we need good examples from various
cultures
Sustainable Development Goals