As Oman celebrates its 53th National Day, it is important to consider the achievements of the past but also keep an eye on the future. As for every nation, the youth is an indispensable part of this future and ensuring that the youth is capable, educated and motivated is key to national development. In fact, ensuring sustainable education is important to produce a spirited, creative and innovative generation.
According to UNESCO, sustainable education is an inter-disciplinary approach that “gives learners of all ages the knowledge, skills, values and agency to address interconnected global challenges including climate change, loss of biodiversity, unsustainable use of resources, and inequality”. It is a means of ensuring that the impact of education is felt, not only on the individual, but also on their community for a long period of time.
On its own, sustainability itself demands that the focus be on the long term implications of social actions, environmental stability and co-existence between communities, as well as with nature.
Sustained education is participatory and active – not just rote learning or even knowing content and information. It is a move away from transmissive education to a transformative one: one in which learners are confident about the contributions they are making to society. On its own, content has little importance, now that it can be found at the touch of a button or the swipe of a screen.
What is more important is what we do with this information and knowledge, how it could be used to bring a change in society in terms of its social markers, how it can benefit from the knowledge of our ancestors and our community and merge this knowledge with that of the present.
Sustainable education, effectively, is a series of practices that helps to contribute to an effective ecosystem with the active participation of learners and teachers.
Typically, sustainable learning focuses on real-world and real-time problem solving and using evidence based information rather than anecdotes or hastily put together data. It also focuses on content that is co-created by a community and is multi-modal in that it uses a combination of text, audio and video material.
Sustainable education prioritises ‘lasting knowledge’, which can mean life-long learning as well as learning at any stage of life. It also encourages learners to have future-focused skills and other soft skills like communication. Awareness of the complex problems surrounding us and the confidence to solve them are important components of the goals of sustainable education.
While Oman is well on its way towards implementing sustainable education, it can accelerate and maximise its positive impacts by sharing data, collaborating on projects and involving the community in any research taking place.
Growth, whether economic or cultural is only possible when the youth is made aware of its potential and given opportunities to use its latent talent. Sustainable educational goals ensure that the energy of youth will be used for long term prosperity and environmental stability.
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