Issues on Sustainable Development

• In Event: Poster session 2

Proposal

Mani Ram Sharma
[email protected]
Out of four sons and a daughter, I was born as the first child to my parents. We are lucky to have our father as a teacher, because of which all four of us (brothers) today are in teaching profession. As far as I remember, when I was still a child, my father opened a special book every night, kept me beside him and told moral stories. When I grew up I realized it was the book called, “My Experiments with Truth” by MK Gandhi, who today is referred to as the pioneer of education and education for sustainable development (ESD) in his own manner. The principles of what we call today ESD is largely based on Gandhiji’s life and philosophy. This is endorsed by UNESCO and the senior world leaders have hailed Mahatma Gandhi as one of the world’s best educators in many international summits and forums.

Implanted with such elements into my mind at my formative stage led me to become a teacher when I had just crossed my teenage. I looked at my father as very wise and respected by all and learnt a lot of basic teaching skills from him. His experience was my guiding stick. Later I went for a two years undergraduate course in education in India that seasoned me to become more professional. Since then, I started thinking what education really meant. The paradigm of education has been changing from just literacy and numeracy when I was a school going boy. We have stepped into the 21st century and the world order is entirely different and our life has become more challenging with many pressing issues. Therefore, the main aim of education today is to prepare the young generation for a sustainable future. Owing to fast growing world economy and the digital connections on the one hand and the disasters being brought about by many natural and man-made calamities, the aim of education has become more diverse and challenging than what we all thought twenty years ago. It is an accepted fact that all the problems of the world have just one answer-education, and more specifically education for sustainable development.
After the MDGs, the seventeen (17) SDGs (2016-30) have strongly put education in the forefront to be the main driving force to fulfill all other goals. Hence, education is the only answer to all the root causes of poverty, poor health and sanitation, gender inequality, resource extinction, etc., etc. that the SDGs have incorporated in the global agenda. I have chosen this field to impart knowledge and skills hoping to add on the global aims for a sustainable world.
Having worked in the field of education since 1982 in different capacities, I want to look into education with a lens that gives me insight of educational approaches taken by developed and developing countries for the past 30 years or more, in trying to fulfill the aspirations of students, parents and the community at large. I am interested to know what education meant to different people in different sample countries. Having attended EE certificate course from Strathclyde University, Scotland, and an Advance ESD course in Sweden/Uppsala University, many short courses in India and Nepal, I am encouraged to get more insight into the main aim of education that fulfills the interest of not only the people but all life forms on this only planet, an education that takes an individual at the depth of things. I have completed PG Dip in Ecology and Environment, a Masters in SD from Sikkim Manipal University, India, and an M.Phil in SD from Global Open University, India.
I went through the prospectus online and strongly felt that University of Regina can fulfill my thirst for learning in the best possible manner. I have a genuine interest in finding the best approach to education, and I am confident I can achieve this goal from University of Regina. Besides, interaction with Prof. Dr. Xia Ji, and her confidence about my ability has also encouraged me to be a part of University of Regina and learn more from learned personalities. I would also be able to share my work and experience with the undergraduate students who will get an insight on what life and education is like in the developing countries.


I hope to find some answers for the pressing questions on the role of education considering the fast changing world-politically, socially, environmentally, economically and culturally. Modernism is taken by today’s youth in many developing and developed countries as forgetting their own culture and tradition-innovative practices that our ancestors practiced for ages. In a globalized economy this is very inevitable. Since the world has been digitized a small change or information on one part of the world is spread all over the globe with just a click on our mobile phones. We feel so modern, proud and satisfied.
I always feel whether this is the reason of today’s global confusion that we have forgotten to respect the innovative ideas and practices that our ancestors and claimed ourselves as the most utilitarian and modern homo-sapiens? Can’t we see some reason into what our ancestors practiced in harmony with nature and environment? Can’t we not see any science within their innovative practices? We should not forget, what we are today is the product of rich culture and traditions that our ancestors practiced in the history of mankind.
Therefore, my research would be to study the Innovative Practices of rural people of Canada that contributed to the present growth. I will do the literature review of the innovative practices undertaken by people of some countries in other western and eastern world. Comparing this, I would like to come up with the scientific principles hidden behind all these practices. I will then develop strategies to relate these rich practices with the contents of the textbooks that we teach today.
This should be able to fulfill most of the SDGs and give an important place to what the indigenous practices really meant for maintaining a sustainable future and I will hopefully come up with a balanced view of education for sustainable development. This project would involve a lot of discussion with the rural folks of Canada, the old and elderly people, youths, teachers, teacher educators, curriculum writers, education departments and ministries, policy makers, apart from literary reviews. I will continuously interact with my guide, different faculties-science, philosophy and rural development of Regina University to validate the information thus collected. This will also involve some travel to some rural areas of Canada, some rural areas of Scotland, and few developing countries, including Nepal as well. In short, I will be investigating the five basic time points-the educational approach and curriculum taught at schools and colleges in few selected countries in 1900, 1950, 1975, 2000, 2016, with their environmental, political and economic situation, corresponding to peoples’ lives and practices in these different time periods, and also compare between ESD and Place-based education.

Author

• Mani Ram Sharma, Mahendra Ratna Campus