PROACTIVE APPROACH

“The ideas of education for sustainable development served the basis for modernization of personnel training in many countries, including Uzbekistan. This innovative system requires completely different approaches to organization of trainings, i.e. proactive approach. If the first steps in this direction were devoted to problems of preschool, school and University ecological education, then the subsequent years addressed the problems of harmonizing interaction between the society and nature, preservation of biodiversity, ecologic education of the population, and shaping up the ecologic culture.

“Now the question arises that ecology should turn into a philosophy of life not only for environmentalists, but also for government agencies, public associations and other civil society institutions, and every individual. For this we need specialists armed with comprehensive knowledge and practical skills within the “nature – society – economics” interactive system and capable to competently manage economic, technological and social processes of advancement without violating the natural environmental balance and links. The ecologic education, which is one of the major tools ensuring the sustainable development of economy and society, is considered as the main link in the achievement of sustainable development.

“The educational institutions of the Republic have been conducting a consistent work on the improvement of training plans and programs; they introduce the systems of continuous ecological education, as well as integrating the principles of sustainable development into the educational process.

“Hence, the elements of ecological education were introduced into the content of 31 disciplines within the system of the Ministry of Public Education. Training personnel on ecological specialities are carried out at the National University of Uzbekistan, Tashkent State Technical University, Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Melioration and other higher educational institutions. Qualification improvement courses for the faculty and researchers have been organized in such directions as “The Fundamentals of Ecology”, “Analysis and Monitoring the Environment”, “Fundamentals of Ecological Audit”, etc.

“Sustainable development assumes preservation of such natural resources as fertile soil, clean air, predicatable weather, ozone layer, and biological diversity. This is possible on condition that all possible ways have been enacted for maintaining efficient high technological sectors, the significant part of which are based on the quality training of specialists.

“The ecologic education is a continuous process of training, self-education, accumulation of experience, and development of a personality directed at shaping certain value orientations and behavioral norms, obtaining special knowledge on the protection of the environment and wildlife management. It continues throughout the entire duration of life, commencing from early childhood and extends out far beyond formal training.

“Environment scientists, teachers, specialists, as well as experts from Sweden, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and other countries acquainted the participants of the international scientific-practical conference, which turned into a discussion platform, held recently in Tashkent with the results of innovative projects and pooled the accumulated experiences in the field of ecological education.

“Further steps in the development of the system of continuous ecological education in the country were identified on the results of the conference with consideration of the interests of sustainable development. Particular attention was allocated to consolidation of interaction between the government bodies of power and administration and civil society institutions.”

THE NEWSPAPER "UZBEKISTAN TODAY"