SDG 4: Creating Inclusive Spaces for Quality Education and Promoting Innovation in Learning

Youth for Sustainability Dialogues is an online platform for Youth Leaders from across the world to come together and discuss their work in local communities on a global level on particular SDG themes. In the past sessions, there was a team from Indonesia talking about how they transformed a local dying art into a profitable and fashionable venture by training housewives. There was also one more team from Cameroon working on providing enhanced sustainable livelihood amongst vulnerable women in rural areas. There were participants from India and Kosovo as well. Another session of Y4SD was organised on 27th November 2020. The theme for the session was SDG 4: Creating Inclusive Spaces for Quality Education and Promoting Innovation in Learning.

Achieving inclusive and quality education for all reaffirms the belief that education is one of the most powerful and proven vehicles for sustainable development. Education enables upward social-economic mobility and is a key to escaping poverty. The UN has also proclaimed that education plays a key role in building sustainable and resilient societies. With this note, the session of Y4SD began.

The expert for the session was Ditta Trindade, Global Education Specialist – Global Education Network Europe and Chair of Supervisory Board of Masterpeace. The session was moderated by Dr. Ashima Mathur, Vice-President, Global Network for Sustainable Development (USA). The participants for the session were Santosh Bidari from MasterPeace Nepal, Natalia Stefanska and Bipin Panday from Global Network for Sustainable Development.

The session began with a few words by Dr. Sapna Narula, Professor and Dean of School of Management Studies at Nalanda University and President of GNSD (India). Dr. Sapna began by thanking CDF India for introducing the platform. She said that the topic is a good start specifically during the pandemic as we were compelled to do some innovations in learning. She also suggested that we have to go beyond conventional models of learning which are making our students and youth only focused on books. Both CDF India and GNSD are involving the youth in some practical work related to Sustainable Development Goals. It was heartening for her to see that the youth were going to different communities,working on different projects,measuring their own performance and having their own targets. Today, though we are in 2020, we still have to think about the models for 2050. She was hopeful that the session would bring in new points for innovation in the conventional forms of the teaching methods.

Two teams who presented their project are committed to providing quality education to the harder to reach communities. The first person to present was Santosh Bidari from MasterPeace, Nepal.

MasterPeace Nepal: Peace for People, a non–governmental and nonprofit organization, was started in 2009 to address the access to quality education in the rural areas of Nepal. Since their educational system is characterized by rote-learning and lack of creativity, the team’s approach was to introduce innovative teaching-learning approaches where the students are encouraged to learn through music, art, sports and storytelling. Some of the projects undertaken by the team are First School Construction of Shree Bhameshtan Primary School. In the school, the team organised a boot camp for the parents wherein they conducted activities such as technique test, examining creativity, parental training, observing the response, activity involvement, checking memory and guardian’s gathering. They also conducted a storytelling mentorship workshop in the school wherein they gave the workshop to 13 primary school teachers about storytelling in the teaching-learning process. They also introduced learning by playing technique in the school. They also conducted a life skill development training and quality education supporting programs in the school. The main achievements of the team have been construction of two school buildings in two different districts, offering free quality education and free healthy meals to 150 children, provision of necessary educational materials to 3,000 students in 22 schools of 7 districts and scholarship grant to 619 students who are pursuing their education in the field of computer hardware and software, bachelor in business administration and secondary level education. The biggest challenge of the team was, not to build a school but to transform the educational values in local communities of Nepal.

The goal of the team till 2030 is to provide educational support to 8,000 students in Dhading district, organise a boot camp for 10,000 students in Nepal to strengthen their critical thinking, decision making and problem-solving skills, train more than thousand teachers and 10,000 guardians by conducting 120 teacher training courses and parents learning programmes at primary, lower secondary and senior secondary schools across the district, creating a Global classroom and a Teacher Hub in Nepal.

Sisters School Project, Global Network for Sustainable Development:

GNSD aims to connect the youth worldwide, and empower young people to be changemakers. They educate students about principles of environmental and social sustainability, as well as about the importance of non-violent conflict resolutions. Learning by doing is one of the most effective methods for achieving this goal. They intend to involve students in community projects through Peace Sustainability Clubs they create in schools globally. Sister School Project was created to provide quality education to children and teenagers from underdeveloped countries by connecting their schools with schools from developed countries.

The first cooperation was with Shree Siddihi Ganesh Primary School in Nepal and Catholic Public High School in Poland. The cooperation was in terms of fundraising, spreading the message and connecting. The cooperation benefited by providing children with educational supplies and improving the quality of education. It also helps them learn about different social, economic and cultural conditions and helps them develop a sense of purpose. They also gained pro-social motivation and learnt to organise social events and fundraisers. Not only this, the students learnt how to be tolerant and open, about sustainability, new perspectives, friendships across the borders and develop a sense of belongingness in the global community. Catholic Public High School raised over $8000 with Shree Siddhi Ganesh Primary School Children. Overall, the project impacted the lives of over a hundred children and teenagers.

Presently, there are over 20 schools wanting to collaborate with the Sister School and helping in making the project grow stronger and bigger. The project aims to show the young people that they can change the world.

The session ended with a question-answer session by the experts and a vote of thanks to the participants, organizing partners and the participants for their valuable time.