Abstract:

Following the declaration of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) from 2005 to 2014, significant efforts were consented by researchers and national institutions to assess progresses made by countries in the achievement of sustainable development educational goals. Since most of the country reports were not publicly released, our study aims to highlight the inclusion of the sustainable development principles in formal education in Romania during the Decade. In order to provide a relevant picture of the Romanian educational improvements and deficiencies during the Decade, we conducted an empirical analysis of the formal education system from two points of view: firstly, the curricular content for primary schools, both core and optional, was studied based on the sustainable development (SD) criteria defined by the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe); this resulted in a mapping matrix that indicates the presence of SD educational principles in the school programmes, discipline by discipline; secondly, we drew up a mapping of several extra-curricular projects run by local schools, from the point of view of the Eco-School criteria proposed by the Comenius-SEED Network. This multi-criteria analysis confirms that important progress was made in Romania regarding the adoption of SD educational policies both at national and local level. However, the effectiveness of these policies varies depending on the degree of implication of local schools, which choose the optional disciplines (20% of the curriculum) and most of the extra-curricular activities. The inclusion of the SD principles at a local level also depends on the educational tools and good practices guides available, which are currently provided in Romania by Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs).

Keywords:

Educational management, sustainable development, education for sustainable development, DESD, United Nations, Romania.