COPENHAGEN, Denmark
Professor Jeppe Læssøe, The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University
"Sustainable development is about coping with risks even though our knowledge is uncertain. It is about difficult and complex issues. The challenge of education is to motivate people to not react by neglecting these demanding and unpleasant matters but by creating spaces, and by facilitating processes, characterised by critical, innovative and action oriented social learning."
Read the interview with Jeppe Læssøe.

WISCONSIN-MADISON, USA
Associate Professor Noah Feinstein, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"Basic education - literacy and numeracy - is crucial for the development of a prosperous and equitable society. Thus, education is a prerequisite for sustainable development: development that balances economic, social and environmental goals. Basic education is not sufficient, however. To achieve true environmental sustainability, citizens must be able to adapt to ecological and social change, understand the implications of new knowledge, and work together to forge long term plans that integrate their own needs with the needs of their community and the rest of the world. Education, conceived broadly, can help citizens develop and refine these abilities throughout their lives."
Read the interview with Noah Feinstein on pp. 12-15.

SEOUL, South Korea
Dr. Chankook Kim, Center for Educational Research, Seoul National University
"The national ESD vision of Korea is 'Sustainable development and sustainable society lead by education'. In the vision, everyone learns the values, action competencies, and lifestyles for sustainable development, which lead to a sustainable society. For the vision of ESD, every individual in our society needs to: i) share the vision for sustainable development, ii) be equipped with the capacity to implement sustainable development, iii) have strong partnerships through active communication, and iv) participate actively in creating a sustainable society. Education plays its roles in achieving such vision of ESD in Korea."
Read interview with Chankook Kim on pp. 18-20.

BEIJING, China
Associate Professor Yi Jing, School of Education, Beijing Normal University
"Education, especially basic education, is an important approach to cultivate public awareness of sustainable development, motivate personal actions and life styles appropriate for sustainable development, and encourage public participation in policy-making process for sustainable development. And teaching about sustainable development topics in professional education is quite necessary for developing recycling economy and democratic social system for sustainable development."
Read the interview with Yi Jin on p. 21.

SINGAPORE
Professor Kim Chuan Goh, Singapore National Institute of Education
"With increasing numbers of children going to school, education is a good vehicle to get the message on the environment across to the young. If this message is consistently stressed at different levels of education, these children will grow up knowing more about the environment and issues of resource use and sustainable development. Education supplies them with the knowledge that leads to awareness of environmental problems and resource depletion. This is not sufficient. Through involvement in project work, community involvement on environmental issues and field work etc., children can develop the skills and appreciation of environmental and sustainable development issues. But education must go beyond achieving awareness and appreciation of sustainable development issues. It should help children and youths to change behaviour by encouraging them to take action to improve the environment, take control of their lives, and influence others to bring about a change in lifestyle."
Read the interview with Kim Chuan Goh on pp. 22-23.

MELBOURNE, Australia
Dr. Dianne Chambers, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
"The Australian Government's vision is that 'All Australians have the awareness, knowledge, skills, values and motivation to live sustainably', and reorienting education systems to sustainability is one of the four key strategies to achieve this vision. Through including sustainability - which is all aspects of schools and universities, including operations, curriculum, policy, and so forth - students will not just learn about sustainability in lessons, but will also see sustainable practices modelled every day and see it as a part of the everyday culture. Just teaching and learning ABOUT sustainability is not enough. As is stated in the Australian Government's vision, people need not only the knowledge, but also the skills, values and motivation to make a change. Educational systems need to teach about sustainability and also need to model good sustainability practices and values in all that they do."
Read the interview with Dianne Chambers on pp. 24-26.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark
Associate Professor Søren Breiting, The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University
"Education has an important role to play as part of sustainable development, but not so much in the way most people intuitively expect. Since it is much easier to identify aspects of development that aren't sustainable compared to describing in detail what kind of development will prove to be sustainable in the long run, education for sustainable development (ESD) has to focus on processes and not on products. Briefly put, we can say that sustainable development is 'the road' we should follow in our journey - not the destination. ESD is to prepare everyone to be engaged, critical and active participants as part of trying to build that road with competencies useful at the local as well as at the political level."
Read the interview with Søren Breiting on pp. 27-29.

COPENHAGEN, Denmark
Professor Karsten Schnack, The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University
"Education is not a means to sustainable development. One of the main purposes of education is to qualify people to become competent participants in democratic processes about common challenges. 'Sustainable development' is an umbrella that covers a lot of the interconnected fundamental issues of the world. Therefore it is very important that all people have an opportunity to learn about the different interpretations of sustainable development and become experienced in engaging in the reflections, discussions, and actions related to the challenges. In this respect an interdisciplinary, participatory, and action-oriented pedagogy will be relevant."
Read the interview with Karsten Schnack on pp. 27-29.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil
Associate Professor Pedro Jacobi, School of Education, University of São Paulo
"Education can be a means to sustainable development when it is combined with other initiatives that enable the promotion of sustainable practices, such as the reduction of consumption, recycling, and reuse of goods. Education plays a strategic role to stimulate and disseminate through social learning initiatives that promote the engagement of the participants. There is a need to develop awareness within the educational community and the public, which indicates that reorienting education to achieve sustainability is essential. So the school district administrators and directors need to be aware of the critical linkages between education and sustainable development. As much as people can perceive that education can improve the motivation to engage in different types of initiatives at different levels, education will increasingly be in a position to help achieve sustainability and engagement in climate-change related practices."

SEOUL, South Korea
Dr. Namsoo Kim, Seoul National University
"The pathway to sustainable development includes all stakeholders' reflection on why current systems are not sustainable and their seeking possible solutions for current and future generations through discussions. In other words, sustainable development can be achieved through reflective social learning processes. Education should play an important role in making rooms for such reflection and discourse."

TORONTO, Canada
Dr. Ermenia Pedretti, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
"Education can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning about sustainable development. If we believe in education as transformation, then the ideals of equity, justice, environmental preservation and restoration, poverty alleviation, and natural resource conservation are possible. Education is ultimately about preparing young people for the future, and issues such as sustainability and climate change are an important part of that future. These issues however, are complex and require balancing environmental, societal, scientific, technological, ethical and economic considerations."