Abstract

This study conducted a survey on recognition of teachers, students, and Parent Teacher Association(PTA) for the Education for Sustainable Development from April to October, 2008. It confirmed a couple of facts, which were summarized as follows; First, among eight educational areas including Environmental Education, Energy Education, Gender Education, World Heritage Education, Multi-cultural Coexistence Education, Peace Education, Education for human rights, and Education for international understanding that UNESCO had offered, this study showed that the 'Environmental Education' is a relatively important area comparing with others. Second, 54.4% of the respondents have agree with the need of the education for sustainable development in the middle school and the high school, and 54.1% of them showed their willingness to participate in the program. Third, because 49.2% of the respondents chose 'important' on the question of 'how important the field education and the experience education are', it looked like most of them agreed with the importance of the field education and the experience education. Fourth, because 61.1% of the responded teachers chose 'need' on the question of 'if it needs relationship with other studies', it looked like most of them agreed with the necessity of relationship with other studies. Fifth, 62.5% of the respondents chose 'no' on the question of 'if they conduct the education for sustainable development Even if some wanted the education for sustainable development, most of them would not do it in the regular curriculum, but in the special activity class or teacher's discretional time. Sixth, most respondents indicated the teacher's class burden and the teacher's lack of knowledge as the problem if the education for sustainable development would be conducted. This result implied that in order to vitalize the education for sustainable development, the teacher's class burden should be reduced and the teacher train program is necessary. Finally, urgent requested studies could improve the education for sustainable development in communities and schools, because the result of the survey showed education, natural observation learning, and visiting ecological parks as important elements.

Keywords

• college students;
• ESD;
• PTA;
• recognition;
• survey;
• teachers;
• UNESCO