Textbooks for Sustainable Development: A Guide to Embedding

This guidebook introduces the approach of embedding education for sustainable development into core subjects, building on the German initiative as well as consolidating other existing efforts. This ambitious work began when the UNESCO Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP), with support from Engagement Global gGmbH, brought together 30 international experts in mathematics, sciences, languages, geography and education for sustainable development in Bangalore, India, in June 2016. These experts co-drafted this guidebook. This publication is designed as a guide for stakeholders in textbook development – education ministries, national curriculum authorities, textbook writers and publishers – to help them produce a new generation of textbooks. Such textbooks will make a clear departure from the mechanistic transmission of information and procedural knowledge devoid of meaning and contextual relevance. They will also advocate a new vision of learning and contribute to fostering young people’s competencies and capabilities to shape more peaceful and sustainable societies. Competencies such as critical and systemic thinking, appreciation of diversity, empathy and commitment to change are the key goals of this ambitious publication.