Introduction: Schooling and education for sustainable development (ESD) across the Pacific

This chapter provides a general and brief overview on the status of schooling and education for sustainable development (ESD) that comprises EE across the Pacific in the context of EE and education reforms. Diversified challenges and common features of ESD across the Pacific are identified. The marginalization of ESD in the school curriculum, the lack of policy and resource support, and inadequate pedagogical content knowledge of teachers call for the improvement of ESD in teacher education and the introduction of teacher education standards for ESD. Increased attention and efforts are also devoted to the development of ESD in the higher education sector. Increasing potentials of ESD are harnessed via school-community-university collaborative projects, NGO involvement, and the use of schools, parks, and environmental learning centers. This chapter concludes by providing chapter overviews and suggestions for future directions of scholarly enquiry and ESD development. Copyright © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.