Editorial: Perspectives on transformations in learning and education

Abstract

The year 2015 officially marks the end of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. It also marks almost 40 years since the Tbilisi Declaration was first released, providing international guidance on environmental education. The Environmental Education Association of southern Africa has also been around for over 33 years, and 2015 will mark the 31st Edition of the southern African Journal of Environmental Education. 2015 also marks 25 years of the Murray & Roberts Chair of Environmental Education at Rhodes University, where the SAJEE is housed, and from where it has been edited for the past 31 years. In this time, environmental education has been integral to various transformations in the education and training systems of southern African countries, and indeed also internationally where similar transformations are taking place. Thus, much has been done over the past 30-40 years, providing an opportune time for us to ‘look back’ on the history of environmental education in southern Africa and elsewhere, and its role in transforming education and society. However, looking back means little if it cannot help us to also look forward. Simply reviewing transformations in education may not be enough as our looking back an forward needs to be contextualized within the changing planetary systems and societies that are being shaped by anthropogenic activities and contemporary development frameworks. In this regard, Anna Stetsenko (2008) suggests that “collaborative purposeful transformation of the world is the core of human nature and the principled grounding for learning and development”.