Five Pillars of Learning

Learning to know
• learn to learn
• acquire a taste for learning throughout life
• develop critical thinking
• acquire tools for understanding the world
• understand sustainability concepts and issues

• Achieving sustainable development requires recognition of the

challenge of sustainability. Education for Sustainable Development:
– recognizes the evolving nature of the concept of sustainability.
– reflects the ever growing needs of societies.
– acknowledges that fulfilling local needs often has international effects
and consequences.
– addresses content, context, global issues and local priorities.
• Learning to know acknowledges that each learner builds her or his
own knowledge, combining indigenous and “external” knowledge to
form new knowledge on a daily basis This concerns knowledge,
values, cognitive skills and reasoning for respecting and searching
for knowledge and wisdom, in order to:
Learning to do
• be an actor as well as a thinker
• understand and act on global and local sustainable development
issues
• acquire technical and professional training
• apply learned knowledge in daily life
• be able to act creatively and responsibly in one’s environment

• Achieving sustainable development requires

acting with determination. Education for
Sustainable Development:
– is locally relevant and culturally appropriate.
– is about helping build a sustainable and safe
world for everyone.
– must become a concrete reality for all our daily decisions and actions.
• Learning to do focuses on the ability to put what is learned into
practice, especially with regard to livelihoods. This is about
knowledge, values, practical skills and knowing how to act for active
engagement in productive employment and recreation, in order to:
• Learning to live together...
• Achieving sustainable development requires
collective responsibility and constructive partnership.
Education for Sustainable Development:

• is interdisciplinary.
• builds civil capacity for community-based decision-making, social tolerance,
environmental stewardship, adaptable workforce and quality of life.
• Learning to live together addresses the critical skills that are essential for a
better life in a context where there is no discrimination and all have equal
opportunity to develop themselves and to contribute to the well-being of their
families and communities. This has to do with knowledge, values, social skills
and social capital for international, intercultural and community cooperation
and peace, in order to:
• participate and co-operate with others in increasingly pluralistic, multi-cultural
societies
• develop an understanding of other people and their histories, traditions, beliefs,
values and cultures
• tolerate, respect, welcome, embrace, and even celebrate difference and
diversity in people
• respond constructively to the cultural diversity and economic disparity found
around the world
• be able to cope with situations of tension, exclusion, conflict, violence, and
terrorism
• Learning to be...
• Achieving sustainable development requires the
indivisibility of human dignity. Education for
Sustainable Development:
• builds on the principles and values that underlie
sustainable development.
• deals with the links between education and learning and all four dimensions of
sustainable development – society, environment, culture and economy.
• contributes to a person’s complete development: mind and body, intelligence,
sensitivity, aesthetic appreciation and spirituality.
• Learning to be assumes that each individual has the opportunity to develop her
or his full potential. Thus, it is based on the precept that education is not just for
purposes of the state or national development, for responding to globalization or
for moulding thinking, but for enabling individuals to learn, and to seek, build,
and use knowledge to address problems on a scale that ranges from the minute
to the global and beyond. This relates to knowledge, values, personal skills and
dignity for personal and family well-being, in order to:
• see oneself as the main actor in defining positive outcomes for the future
• encourage discovery and experimentation
• acquire universally shared values
• develop one’s personality, self-identity, self-knowledge and self-fulfilment
• be able to act with greater autonomy, judgment and personal responsibility
Learning to transform oneself and
society
• Achieving sustainable development requires individual and collective
actions. Education for Sustainable Development:
• integrates the values inherent in sustainable development into all aspects of learning.
• encourages changes in behaviour to create a more viable and fairer society for everyone.
• teaches people to reflect critically on their own communities
• empowers people to assume responsibility for creating and enjoying a sustainable future.
• Learning to transform oneself and society recognizes that individuals working separately
and together can change the world, and that a quality education provides the tools to
transform societies, because of the way it equips human beings with knowledge, values
and skills for transforming attitudes and lifestyles. This reflects a synergy of cognitive,
practical, personal and social skills to bring about sustainability, in order to:
• work toward a gender neutral, non-discriminatory society
• develop the ability and will to integrate sustainable lifestyles for ourselves and others
• promote behaviours and practices that minimise our ecological footprint on the world
around us
• be respectful of the Earth and life in all its diversity,
• act to achieve social solidarity
• promote democracy in a society where peace prevails.
 Functionality, as conveyed by the new definition of functional literacy, is
equated with the notions of life skills/lifelong learning rooted in the four pillars
of education articulated by the Delors Commission.4 These pillars are:
learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be.
The new definition is to be translated and/or operationalized by the five
strands of indicators as follows:

• (1) communication skills;

• (2) problem solving and critical thinking;
• (3) sustainable use of
resources/productivity;
• (4) development of self and sense of
community; and
• (5) expanding one’s world vision.
Basic or Simple Literacy is the ability of a person
to read and write with
understanding of simple message in any language
or dialect.

Operational Definition of Functional literacy –

is the ability to communicate
effectively, solve problems scientifically, think
critically and creatively, use
resources sustainably and be productive. To
develop one’s sense of community and to
expand one’s world view.