This article explores, from a sustainable development perspective, the vision and priority areas which have been focused on in all the major educational policy documents of Pakistan from1947 to 2017. Firstly, the study presents some results from a literature review of the links between education and development. We analyse different Pakistan national education policy documents from 1947 to 2017, and discuss thepost-2009 scenarios (after the 2010, 18 th Constitutional Amendment ii , education became the responsibility of provinces). Secondly, the study focuses on the results of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-14) in Pakistan. If education for sustainable development means allowing every human being to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values necessary to shape their own sustainable future, it also means including key sustainable development issues (climate change, energy, food security, biodiversity, peace, tolerance, etc.) into the teaching and learning methods to change behaviours. Education for Sustainable Development could be a key driver for Higher education.
If the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development national educational policies and strategies has taken place in a context in whichEnvironmental Education was already well established, it has been widely institutionalized by the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. a UNESCO programme. The aim of ESD is to encourage changes in education so that it can effectively contribute to the reorientation of societies towards sustainable development. It proposes participatory methods of teaching and learning such as critical thinking, the imagination of future scenarios, and collaborative decision-making to enable learners to take the actions necessary for sustainable development.
Every nation state is struggling hard to improve the living standard of its people so that Pakistan is looking for its people. It is believed that education can bring long lasting and sustainable transformation or change in any society towards better living standards and improve socioeconomic conditions. There is consensus among the majority of nations and academia that quality education with inclusiveness and equity is the only tool which can bring a desired change. Education has a very close relationship with the contemporary paradigm shift of education for sustainable development to create critical thinking mindset of the nation to create healthy minds. Literature on sustainability and education demonstrates a causal link with socioeconomic development. Academia, society, researchers, scientists, industry and all folks of society are convinced that education is the key tool to bring a change from local to global level in order to curtail contemporary challenges human beings and the planet is facing. A system analysis approach is used to understand logical links among loops. The causal relationship is demonstrated in the form of a Causal Loops Diagram (CLD) reinforces the idea that education is not only a key driver for introducing more sustainability into the development process, it is also a set of leverage points that should be gradually removed. Therefore, it is understood that quality education is affected by multiple factors to achieve. Contribution/Originality: This study contributes to understand the long quest to Education for Sustainable Development from Brundtland Report (1987) to SDG4 "Quality Education" (2015-2020). We use Pakistan"s case study to explain how Education and Sustainability change the representation of developing country. 1. INTRODUCTION Pakistan is one of the worst affected countries in a long list of multifaceted global challenges such as poverty, education, illiteracy, climate change, terrorism, peace, pollution, environment, social security, tolerance, health, basic necessities so on. Many of these issues are directly or indirectly related to education, economic development and growth. During the previous review of educational policies of Pakistan (Khushik & Diemer, 2017) it was observed that most of the educational policies focused on two main aspects, economic development and character building of the nation. However, it is a dilemma for the country that it could not achieve any of these targets. Education is the prime need of the contemporary era of the country. It is considered as the only tool for the longterm development of the nation and country as a whole. It is widely accepted truth in the developed countries and evident that education transformed many societies (Mundy, Green, Lingard, & Verger, 2016). Many developed countries' living standard is high in HDI because they invest all types of resources into the nation for the
Over the decades, educational systems around the globe evolved from simple to complex, with increase in its scope, spread, access and dynamic nature. This complex phenomenon needs simplified methods and models to explain/understand the systemic nature of cause and effect. This article pertains to exploring the dynamic educational context of Pakistan with focus on operationalizing SDG 4 and preparing children for a challenging future. System Thinking and System Analysis are used to map the main driving forces of the education system in Pakistan. Tools such as CLDs (Causal Loop Diagrams) illustrate the qualitative structure of the model. Variables such as educational access (number of enrolment at national level in primary to secondary level of education), inclusiveness budget (investment in education sector), GDP (ratio of GDP utilized on education), and equity (rate of gender per class), are analysed through loops to achieve SDG 4 targets. Both historically and currently, achieving Pakistan's educational objectives has been challenging. It requires a holistic approach for achieving objectives for example access to primary education.
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