Empowering youth to achieve sustainable development through education

Key points

The EESC:

• calls on the Member States to include climate action and sustainable development as a core component in the educational curriculum, not only in theory but also in practice;
• highlights the need to re-imagine the future together with the youth and devise a new social contract that positively transforms education;
• stresses the need for a comprehensive cross-cutting approach, ensuring cooperation between the different stakeholders, social partners and civil society organisations;
• encourages the European Commission to continue focusing on the needs of youth in the European Year of Skills 2023, linking it to sustainable development and the challenges young people are facing in the changing world;
• welcomes the coordinating role of the Commission, however stresses that strategies for a transformative education for sustainable development should be designed at national, regional and local levels, based on consistent research and clear action plans;
• calls for EU investment to be better linked to sustainable development education using EU funds, such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), Erasmus+, Horizon, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+);
• calls upon the Member States to provide effective support to teachers to make the profession more attractive;
• suggests to develop a dedicated online platform or dashboard to exchange best practices;
• calls on the European Commission to work on introducing a European indicator on reducing poverty and early school leaving, in line with sustainable development education.