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The third expert meeting for the project “Sustainability begins with teachers in Central Asia” took place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 31 January to 1 February 2018. The UNESCO Almaty Cluster Office organized the meeting in cooperation with UNESCO Tashkent, the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Office in Bangkok and with funding from Japan.

“Learning should bring about change and change is not always comfortable.

 

Mr. Shepherd Urenje, representative of the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development

Contributing to the Global Action Programme (GAP) on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) the project advocates for change in sustainable development practices of teacher education institutions in different regions, including Africa, Europe, South-East Asia and Central Asia. Twenty teacher education institutions from four Central Asian countries are implementing the “Change project” to bring incremental improvements and increase social awareness on ESD and Global Citizenship Education (GCED). The third expert meeting gathered ESD experts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Sweden to analyze the project implementation status in each participating country and facilitate the organization of a sub-regional workshop to be organized in Uzbekistan in April to evaluate the project.

Mr. Shepherd Urenje, representative of the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development argued that “learning should bring about change and change is not always comfortable. We are here because of the Global Action Programme, which is about scaling up Education for Sustainable Development projects. One important aspect is the link between the Ministries of Education and mainstreaming of activities on ESD across different levels of education, including higher education, primary and secondary education and pre-school education.” Azamat Azizov from the National University from Uzbekistan stressed that an awareness of the importance of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG) and ESD are indispensable elements of the formation of quality education and country development.

Galiya Nurmukhanbetova from the International Information Technologies University in Almaty shared examples of students’ initiatives to develop green technologies in Kazakhstan, such as Tazalyk application that promotes recycling; Eco-Stations in Almaty, where the solar panels allow people to charge phones while waiting for the bus, or electronic terminals that allow to consult the bus schedule with a voice search control for inclusivity. A lot of such projects on green technologies have been initiated by young people. Green technologies become a bridge to the goals of sustainable development and education for all.

Related Links:

• Sustainability Begins with Teachers of Central Asia

• Second Expert Meeting on "Sustainability Begins with Teachers"

• Sustainability Begins with Teachers in Central Asia Workshop to Take Place in Almaty

• Sustainability Begins with Teachers in Central Asia – results of the UNESCO sub-regional workshop in Almaty

URL:

http://en.unesco.kz/education-for-sustainable-development-should-bring-about-change