Education for Sustainable Development Curriculum

Although the concept of sustainable development has been sparked off since twenty years ago, yet its implementation both in local and national level is not fully realized. This is due to the practitioners of the development are facing a number of obstacles and challenges in creating a balance among the economic, social, and environmental dimension from many sectors of development. It is not surprising that there are still a lot of environmental issues rising, while the government is in the process of adapting the principles of sustainable development.

Like other big cities in Indonesia, Bandung city that is progressing toward metropolitan city, is facing numerous environmental problems. One of the problems that becomes of public concern is about city waste. Therefore, the local government of Bandung City has paid attention to resolve such problem. The concern from other parties has also been growing although the good practices of waste management are still not being achieved yet. In the last few years, a more systematic effort has been arranged, and more relevant organizations get involved in waste handling.

To accelerate the achievement of the city’s waste management goals, there is a need to integrate factors that facilitate coordination among diverse efforts. Such an integrative factor is ecotown initiative. The concept of ecotown has been implemented in many cities in Japan and Europe to solve the environmental problems, as well as to trigger economic growth. However, in Indonesia the concept is still not well understood yet by the people, and discussion regarding the ecotown is carried in a limited group such as government officials and academicians. In year 2009, Bandung City is appointed as one of the three cities for ecotown pilot project in Asia-Pacific area. With regard to this matter, Global Environment Centre Foundation (GEC) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in collaboration with the local government of Bandung City is developing “Ecotown Project” in order to create a recycle-oriented society. In the concept of ecotown that will be developed, the waste management is approached with 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) principle.

To facilitate and support the ecotown initiative, the local government of Bandung City and the Institute of Ecology (IoE) Universitas Padjadjaran have been conducting series of workshops and surveys. Basically, the two main activities are set up to identify the crucial environmental issues, to identify existing environmental technologies adopted by industries, businesses, recyclers, and people, and to develop shared vision and understanding among stakeholders regarding the ecotown concept.

In line with the practical aspects of the development of the ecotown, a change in paradigm upon environment is required. Therefore, an education on sustainable development (ESD) should be arranged for city citizen. The ESD is considered to play an important role to change behavior of the people to be more environmentally conscious. Therefore a workshop on “Environmental education to support ecotown development in Bandung City” has been conducted on October 31, 2009.