Education for Development
(The Millennium Development Goals)
Education for Development (ED) is a strategic area for Spanish Cooperation, and aims to achieve universal commitment to the fight against poverty and social exclusion and in favour of sustainable human development.
ED facilitates our understanding of the globalised world, provoking a critical attitude and a commitment to reality, generating involvement and responsibility in the fight against poverty, promoting generous attitudes and values, and ultimately, creating a global citizenship. ("Think globally, act locally").
The Spanish Cooperation Strategy on Education for Development defines ED as the "unceasing educational process (formal, non-formal and informal) aimed, through knowledge, attitudes and values, at promoting global citizenship based on a culture of committed solidarity to the fight against poverty and exclusion and to promoting sustainable human development".
Emphasis is placed on education because we believe ED actions should not be carried out in isolation, but as part of planned projects and targeted at a specific public, whether in schools and universities, or leisure centres, the media, etc.
The horizontal and sectoral principles of Spanish Cooperation determine the content of its ED actions. The four dimensions, inclusive and interrelated, through which ED is developed are:
- Awareness-raising. Action based on the transmission of information, from a human rights and gender-sensitive approach, with an emphasis on developing skills to enable a better understanding of the causes of poverty, its relationship to human rights violations and the structures that perpetuate them, and of the realities of the South, of interdependence and globalization, and of the practices and actions that may affect the processes giving rise to inequalities.
- Development Training. This is an educational process aimed at a clearly-identified target public for whom specific educational methodologies are applied to develop cognition, procedure and attitude skills.
- Research for development. The question of research is crucial to any transformation model addressing development-related problems, by means of which an in-depth analysis can be made and solid proposals advanced. Accordingly, ED practices should be solidly grounded in this respect. Working methods, thus, need to be based on social research techniques with a special emphasis on those favouring action-oriented research.
- Social mobilisation. The most apparent expression of the active participation of citizens, enabling them to participate directly in fighting poverty and in promoting human development. Social mobilisation encourages public participation in processes of political change and in the transformation of social, economic and/or political structures.
In performing all the above, AECID works in conjunction with NGOs, universities and trade unions, among other social agents, as well as with cooperation agencies, through mechanisms such as Agreements with Selected ONGDs,the Annual ONGD Grant Announcement and the Standing Open Cooperation Facility (CAP).
AECID, in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Education, has created the Teachers for Development programme, aimed at schools supported by public funds. This programme is intended to help establish work groups and networks in this area, progressively incorporating all the different actors involved. The “Vicente Ferrer” National Education Award for Development is one of the pillars of this joint programme.
AECID works to promote the Formal Education Programme within its Education for Development Unit, as well as an awareness campaign for students at the AULA International Student Fair. AULA is one of Spain’s most important annual events in the field of education, training and educational orientation, and is the only one promoted by the Ministry of Education. The presence here of the Education for Development Unit provides a unique opportunity to present its work to a significant number of students, teachers and families who come to this important educational event.
National Meeting of Teachers in Education for Development: Building up Networks. Organized by AECID and the Ministry of Education, this Meeting is intended to promote opportunities for exchange and reflection on the introduction in schools of Education for Development from the perspective of global citizenship, to present and exchange information on resources and best practices in Education for Development, and on training in cross-cutting procedural and attitudinal contents in Education for Development.