KARACHI, March 21: Education for sustainable development (ESD) should be looked upon as an approach that helps people evaluate what they expect from society to be like and what can be done to achieve it.

It is not just environment that it is concerned with but in fact it deals with all the aspects of life and lifestyles, said the chief guest of the closing ceremony of the conference, Ichiro Miyazawa, chief education specialist of Unesco, Islamabad, on Wednesday.

The two-day conference titled ‘Learning to Live on the Plane Earth’, organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) ended after an interesting exchange of ideas and view points about ESD.

During the first half of the day, workshops of various groups were carried out. Each group was then asked to share with other participants what they had learned about ESD and its link with the subject that they had chosen.

The presentations were followed by a discussion session after which the closing ceremony took place. It was decided at the discussion forum to form a group of volunteers who wished to work for ESD and would support it.

There were also various ideas tabled by the participants during the presentations regarding paving the way for ESD, out of which one was to make interaction between the media and experts from all walks of life possible in order to promote the cause in an effective manner.

Ichiro Miyazawa, while addressing the participants at the closing ceremony, said that it was important to evaluate the concept of ESD keeping the ground realities of the area in mind rather than to import some foreign concept that was totally alien to society.

He said Unesco was also interested in helping Pakistan in promoting quality education, achieving Millennium Development Goals and to facilitate a network for it. Aban Maker Kabraji, regional director of IUCN Asia, spoke next and described the need to hold such events.

She remarked that ESD helped people adjust to various changes required in society and to be more acceptable towards it. She said that people often asked her what IUCN produced and the answer for that was `creating awareness’.

Javed Jabbar, when asked to express his views on ESD, said that it was necessary to promote it at the grassroots level rather than restricting to the privileged class. He also said that people associated with it needed to take things more seriously.

Saquib Hanif thanked guests and workshop facilitators and presented them souvenirs at the end of the programme.