The ancient and mystical order of The Rosicrucian Order, (AMORC), has identify some critical factors that are indices to achieving sustainable national development in Nigeria.
This is coming at a point in time when the country, with an estimated population of 203 million people, led by Muhammed Buhari, is facing severe hardships.
About 80% of the estimated populations are living below the poverty line.
Speaking during the public lecture organized by the Lagos zone of AMORC and held at the weekend at Memphis Lodge premises in Ikorodu, Lagos, Johnson Ikube, chief executive officer, Online Services, identified the factors as: lack of poverty and hunger, good health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation.
He mentioned others to include: affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry, innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable development goals to be achieved by 2030, sustainable cities and communities, responsible production and consumption and peace, justice and strong institutions,, among others.
Ikube, also the grand councilor for Ghana for the fraternal organizations, in his lecture said that for individuals, groups, societies, nations, etc, achieving sustainable national development, is the ability of an individual, group, or improve the social welfare of the people, by providing social amenities like quality education, potable water, transportation, infrastructure, medical care, etc.
He further explained that the United Nations Decade Report defines achieving sustainable national development as "growth plus, change in social and cultural, as well as economic and qualitative and quantitative wellbeing of the people or the nation".
His words: "Some of the parameters to national development are: increase in national economy, increase in agricultural production through application of modern, technical know-how, harnessing industrial production, development of human resource, application of science and technology in production sector, provision of mass education and provision of various facilities to meet the needs and aspirations of disadvantaged, deprived and poorest of the poor segments of population.
These could be activated by challenges that include but not limited to economic growth in terms of GDP without a corresponding rise in living standards, unemployment and under-employment, high level of illiteracy, uncontrollable rapid growth of population, problems of national and emotional integration, inertia to change process, slow process of modernization, and problem of evolving a democratic, socialistic and secular order, incidence of poverty and poor standards of livings.
Again, his words: "Achieving sustainable national development is the organizing principle for meeting human development goals while simultaneously sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society depend".
The desired result is a state of society where living conditions and resources are seed to continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system. (Wikipedia).
In Nigeria, for instance, we need to move from geo-political zones to geo-economic zones, where 12 Zonal structures will each headed by a
Vice President, while country's president gives us a 13 member executive committee, with the capacity to address the many challenges confronting the 12 geo economic zones, while the police and other security agencies are empowered to ensure the safety of lives and property in the country.
"The biased issues of zoning of who becomes president should be will be eliminated, while zone specific agendas will run up to the vice presidential levels, even as our youths as leaders of tomorrow, should be the center of focus as future entrepreneurs", he said.
Education is the primary agent of transformation towards sustainable development, increasing people's capacities to transform their visions for society into reality. Education not only provides scientific and technical skills, it also provides the motivation, and social support for pursuing and applying them. For this reason, society must be deeply concerned that much of current education falls far short of what is required. When we say this, it reflects the very necessities across the cultures that allow everyone become responsible towards quality enhancement.
Improving the quality and revelation of education and reorienting its goals to recognize the importance of sustainable development must be among society's highest priorities. It is not that we talk only about environment but also about every component of life.
We therefore need to clarify the concept of education for sustainable development. It was a major challenge for educators during the last decade. The meanings of sustainable development in educational set ups, the appropriate balance of peace, human rights, citizenship, social equity, ecological and development themes in already overloaded curricula, and ways of integrating the humanities, the social sciences and the arts into what had up-to-now been seen and practiced as a branch of science education.
Some argued that educating for sustainable development ran the risk of programming while others wondered whether asking schools to take a lead in the transition to sustainable development was asking too much of teachers.
These debates were compounded by the desire of many, predominantly environmental, NGOs to contribute to educational planning without the requisite understanding of how education systems work, how educational change and innovation takes place, and of relevant curriculum development, professional development and instructive values. Not realizing that effective educational change takes time, others were critical of governments for not acting more quickly.
Consequently, many international, regional and national initiatives have contributed to an expanded and refined understanding of the meaning of education for sustainable development. For example, Education International, the major umbrella group of teachers' unions and associations in the world, has issued a declaration and action plan to promote sustainable development through education.
A common agenda in all of these is the need for an integrated approach through which all communities, government entities, collaborate in developing a shared understanding of and commitment to policies, strategies and programs of education for sustainable development.
Actively promoting the integration of education into sustainable development at local community
In addition, many individual governments have established committees, panels, advisory councils and curriculum development projects to discuss education for sustainable development, develop
drain cleaning services in gaborone and appropriate support structures, programs and resources, and fund local initiatives.
Indeed, the roots of education for sustainable development are firmly planted in the environmental education efforts of such groups. Along with global education, development education, peace education, citizenship education, human rights education, and multicultural and anti-racist education that have all been significant, environmental education has been particularly significant. In its brief thirty-year history, contemporary environmental education has steadily striven towards goals and outcomes similar and comparable to those inherent in the concept of sustainability.
A New Vision for Education
These many initiatives illustrate that the international community now strongly believes that we need to foster - through education - the values, behavior and lifestyles required for a sustainable future. Education for sustainable development has come to be seen as a process of learning how to make decisions that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology and social well-being of all communities. Building the capacity for such futures-oriented thinking is a key task of education.
This represents a new vision of education, a vision that helps learners better understand the world in which they live, addressing the complexity and inter-contentedness of problems such as poverty, wasteful consumption, environmental degradation, urban decay, population growth, gender inequality, health, conflict and the violation of human rights that threaten our future. This vision of education emphasizes a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to developing the knowledge and skills needed for a sustainable future as well as changes in values, behavior, and lifestyles. This requires us to reorient education systems, policies and practices in order to empower everyone, young and old, to make decisions and act in culturally appropriate and locally relevant ways to redress the problems that threaten our common future. We therefore need to think globally and act locally. In this way, people of all ages can become empowered to develop and evaluate alternative visions of a sustainable future and to fulfill these visions through working creatively with others.
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