What is global education? Underlying the objectives of global education is the belief that education can provide learning experiences which will raise awareness of, and commitment to, a fairer and more sustainable world.

Global education in the curriculum Global education helps learners understand the world around them and encourages them to actively participate in making their own communities and the wider world fairer and more sustainable.

Why is global education essential in the 21 st Century? In a fast changing and interdependent world, education can, and should, help young people to meet the challenges they will confront now and in the future.

“In a fast changing, globalised world, education needs to help people understand the wider world around them and make the global connections between issues such as poverty or climate change and their own lives. It should prepare them to live and work in a global society and economy and engage them to make the world a better place.” (Think Global website)

Sustainable development and globalisation. Diversity. Peace and conflict. Social justice and equity.

The lives of young children are increasingly shaped by what happens in other parts of the world. Global education gives children the knowledge, understanding, skills and values that they need if they are to participate fully in ensuring their own, and others, well-being and to make a positive contribution, both locally and globally.

Current use of the worlds resources is inequitable and unsustainable. As the gap between rich and poor widens, poverty continues to deny millions of people around the world their basic rights. Education is a powerful tool for changing the world because tomorrows adults are the children and young people we are educating today. Global education encourages children and young people to care about the planet and to develop empathy with, and an active concern, for those with whom they share it.