Education for Sustainable Development: The Quest for "Ubuntu"

Overview & Synopsis

Undeniably, education for sustainable development can justifiably be considered as a laudable educational practice because of its purpose to foster environmental awareness and responsibility, enhance economic sustainability, cultivate critical thinking and empowerment of people and build inclusive societies (UNESCO, 2017, "Education for sustainable development goals: Learning objectives"). In this article, I tease out three policy perspectives on education for sustainable development in the quest to cultivate a more tenable notion of higher education specifically related to the African context. First, I argue that any idea of African higher education ought to be constituted by a defensible philosophy of "ubuntu." Second, I show that an African philosophy of higher education, that is, "ubuntu," invariably connects with the enactment of sustainable development through the manifestation of democratic citizenship. Third, I argue that an African philosophy of higher education ("ubuntu") remains resistant to forms of injustice, inhumanity and exclusion that might ensue.