It is concerned with building a student’s knowledge, awareness and understanding of the world that they live in, and how that world is often an unequal one in terms of resources, social justice and human rights.
Artist, educator and activist Niamh Comiskey’s film narrates her journey of working with African communities and how she connects the local to the global. This film was created as part of a Development Education intervention in The National College of Art and Design.
Through active learning methodologies it enables students to develop skills and capacities, attitudes and values that are necessary to facilitate individuals to critically examine the world, its development and its interdependencies. In doing so it promotes learners to act and engage in issues from a local national and a global perspective in order to make this world a more just and equitable place.
Development Education promotes a classroom environment that facilitates experiential, holistic, participative and reflective engagement with the socio political, economic, cultural and environmental content it explores.
As a educational process there are four stages to the learning framework that DE encompasses
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) extends the perspective of Development Education beyond the economic and social views to include the environmental and the importance of maintaining and protecting the planet while meeting our development needs. ESD enables individuals to make personal and collective decisions and to partake in actions that improve or sustain quality of life without potentially compromising the earth and its resources for future generations.
