The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, and the tech giant Samsung, have all partnered together to revolutionize education in Vietnam. As a collaborative effort between governments and a private company, the initiative is set to create a focus on environmental and cultural sustainability within the Vietnamese education system. It is the first of its kind to be implemented thus far in the region.
Sustainable education is of growing importance around the world, specifically in developing countries that are more acutely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Increases in temperature can threaten native species, agriculture, archaeological sites and more. Not to mention the increase in weather severity or natural disasters such as hurricanes, tsunami’s etc.
In order to accomplish the implementation of sustainable education successfully, the initiative is taking a three-pronged approach:
- Create awareness in the community and media concerning the importance of climate change and its impact on quality of life (agriculture, natural disasters, biodiversity etc.) and local heritage sites.
- Develop an e-learning interface for instructors and teachers in order to train and provide them with the resources needed to implement sustainable education into their lessons. The system would also provide key information to help schools develop natural disaster readiness protocols.
- Extend sustainable education principles to developing protection plans for local heritage sites in the face of damaging climate change.
Vietnam will be the first of hopefully many countries to pilot this model. If the program is successful, UNESCO reports that the resources will be made available to other countries and the rest of the world.
–Morgan Forde
Source: UNESCO
Photo: Flickr