Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) together with UNESCO and Samsung have recently launched the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Initiative.
Deputy Minister of Education Nguyen Vinh Hien noted the challenges to Vietnam’s national development at a ceremony celebrating the launch of the program. He mentioned that Vietnam faces vulnerability to climate change, natural disasters, and biodiversity loss. As a response, this program will incorporate a training program with its content made into textbooks on sustainable development. This program is one way the Ministry is raising awareness on the issue: by engaging students’ interest and integrating the material into school curriculum, so that the future problem solvers have a strategic advantage on the problem.
The US$ 1 million two-year program is designed to develop, pilot, and distribute multimedia teacher-training material on Education for Sustainable Development. The initiative has three main objectives; one of them is to develop and implement “e-learning teacher training courses to strengthen teachers’ understanding of ESD and enhance their capacities to integrate it into classroom activities for primary students’ benefit and to lead the school community to develop disaster preparedness plans”.
Primary schools in Hue region, a part of the country that experiences detrimental effects of climate change, will pilot the teacher-training materials. 133 teacher training institutions and 63 provincial Departments of Education and Training will have access to the training material that is developed through initiative. The end goal is to have a disaster risk reduction and climate change response program for each of the participating pilot schools. Collaboration with international environmental agencies, national universities and other interested entities of the Vietnamese government is expected.
Vietnam is the first beneficiary of the Samsung-UNESCO ESD project. “We would like to share our experience in overcoming challenges and innovations in creating a bright and sustainable future with those children who will shape tomorrow,” said In Yong Thee, President and head of Samsung’s Communication Team. Samsung will lend its technical expertise to the program as well. This development project, created by UNESCO and funded by Samsung, aims to improve Vietnam’s response to the effects of the environment for future generations.
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