Standards for Education for Sustainable Development

With these standards Bulgaria strives for, in its variety, all possible topics and issues applying to sustainable development to be embedded in the school curricula and study content, for the different classes of the compulsory primary and secondary schooling. An integrated approach has been employed, without the need to establish a separate school subject under the title "sustainable development"; the topics are discussed given their particular specificity, once, and then within the context of the relevant taught school subject and broader cultural-educational field. This interdisciplinary approach enables best opportunities for gaining a deeper understanding and reflecting upon the given topics both in the context of the specific scientific field and in reference to other spheres of knowledge and human activity via cross-curricular links. In national context, an ever overarching priority of the Bulgarian government over the years has been an early pre-school education and upbringing. The pre-schooling is considered as an effective mean to laying a firm foundation for further successful learning and development. The early preparation of children two years before compulsory schooling is deemed as vital and therefore the state educational standards prescribe in expected results from teaching, to introduce children to safety rules in case of natural disasters, to raise their understanding and awareness about the need to take care for animals and protect their right to live, to raise their willingness to take care and grow plants, etc.  

In the state educational standards are included basic cores of educational content bound with education for environment and sustainable development and are formulated knowledge, skills, attitudes and competence, oriented to education for environment and sustainable development, which need to be absorbed by students at the time of completion of the relevant stage or degree.

In the curriculum for various subjects and classes these standards are decomposed in training targets on relevant topics. Main focus on education for sustainable development is placed in standards and curricula for man and society, history and civilization, geography and economics, science and ecology, man and nature, biology and health, education and chemistry and environmental protection, in subject cycle "Philosophy", etc., although topics, questions and challenges of sustainable development are explicitly covered in the programs on other subjects, such as foreign language.

As a result of training, the student, among others:

·      Determines the importance of natural resources for human life; indicate the connection between the characteristics of the environment and the employment; gives examples of the consequences of the interaction between man and the environment; gives examples of environmental changes in the lifestyle of people, occurred as a result of some technical innovations (man and society);

·      Is familiar with the principles of environmental monitoring and realizes the need of it; compares positive and negative aspects of life in urban areas; analyzes the main forms of international economic cooperation (geography and economics);

·      Identifies human activities leading to imbalance in nature (man and nature);

·      Evaluates the impact of man on nature and causes for disruption of the ecological balance; forsees the results of changing environmental factors and the human impact on the ecological balance (biology and health education);

·      Arguing the need for rational use of natural resources; proves the need of secondary use of materials, waste-free and environmental safe production (chemistry and environmental protection);

·      Knows the basic rules of natural friendly way of behavior (technologies and entrepreneurship) and others.