Indonesia Support ESD for 2030 through National Workshop for Country Initiatives
At the 40th UNESCO General Conference in November 2019, UNESCO, as the leading UN Agency for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), launched the new framework “ESD: Towards achieving the SDGs” or “ESD for 2030”. UNESCO encourages the Member States to develop strategies through Country Initiatives to implement activities for the five Priority Action Areas of ESD on advancing policy, transforming learning environments, building capacities of educators, empowering and mobilizing youth and accelerating local level actions.
On 6 April 2021, Indonesia, under the coordination of the Ministry of Education and Culture through the Indonesia National Commission for UNESCO (INCU), organized a “National Workshop on Indonesia’s Initiatives Towards Education for Sustainability (ESD) for 2030” to support actions toward the new global framework.
During the opening session, the Executive Chairman of INCU, Prof. H. Arief Rachman, highlighted that quality education is achievable if it is integrated with the ESD perspective by providing students with the capacity to tackle current world problems and global challenges. The Officer-in-Charge of UNESCO Jakarta, Dr Hans Thulstrup, reiterated UNESCO invitation to the Member States, including Indonesia, to actively integrate, promote, and provide opportunities for ESD initiatives by involving different stakeholders in the country.
Speakers from Ministry of National Planning/Bappenas, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, various Directorates at Ministry of Education and Culture and School presented policies related to Education for Sustainable Development in each sector and shared implementation, best practices and lessons learned of ESD on each level of education. Strong message was conveyed by Ms Asri Tresnawati, Head of Environmental Generation Development, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, that there is a need to increase coordination between institutions to face challenges in environmental issues so that they can be prioritized in the curriculum and included in the formulation of national education policies.
The national workshop aimed to call for multi stakeholders of ESD in Indonesia to build the on ongoing government’s efforts on ESD and possibly creating new actions as country initiative towards the achievement of ESD for 2030.