Driving Forces of Sustainable Education: A Case Study representing Sustainable Primary Education in the District of North Parganas

Abstract

The global context of education has brought a new dimension to development education to build an inclusive sustainable future.  Educational Interventions in the form of developmental education builds a sense of consciousness, skills of analysis and understanding, along with efficiency to promote sustainability and justice. Sustainability includes a wide range of parameters including environmental factors, social and cultural factors, which can only be attained by creating awareness and empower the learners to take responsibility to bring a transition, brought through this sustainable, education system. This can be attained through development education which is needed to address the inequalities and social injustice embedded in our society. This paper is based on a model which shows that the three factors ‘people– planet - profit’ (socio – economic - environmental) framework which is being adopted to study the complexities of different aspects of Primary Education system in West Bengal. The sustainable education based on this framework would imply the three basic factors i.e. sustainable educational policies, enhance the competency of teachers, learners and other stakeholders in the society and enrich the socio-environmental eco-system of educational institutions to attain the desirable sustainable outcome. This framework is being applied to see whether surveyed data from different primary schools of different villages in North 24 Parganas of West Bengal, would lead to sustainable education. This paper incorporates the three factors from the model and the corresponding transformation that it can bring about through these factors of education to attain sustainability in primary education system.

Results show the Issues of Driver 1 represent, Information on Quality Indicators which is represented by the availability of learning resources, Issues of Driver 2 represent the community participation from various categories of students, represented by the engagement of various categories of students and teacher’s whose pro-active role is enhanced through training and skills along with community participation. The Issues of Driver 3 (Planet) constitute creating a favourable environment for sustainable education represented by creating an environment-friendly atmosphere leading to sustainable education in the primary schools. All these three drivers work harmoniously to create a sustainable education system.