COMPLETION REPORT
Asst. Prof. Ts. Dr. Irina Safitri Zen
Affiliation: International Islamic University Malaysia
Revisiting the Japanese Okayama Model of Education for Sustainable Development, ESD:
Lessons to Reorient ESD for Malaysia
Summary
According to the study's findings, the Okayama Model of ESD is part of a long-term societal change that wasoriginally based on the social education act passed in the 1940s. Shakaikyôiku, or social education, is a Japanese
educational approach that places a strong emphasis on non-formal education. Non-formal education is defined inArticle 2 of the Social Education Act as adult education, community education, and education for children and youththat takes place outside of school. The Japanese education for sustainable development (ESD) movement has strived
to collectively enhance the conventional education. It was incorporated into the Okayama ESD Project, which
included 260 established Kominkans in Okayama Prefecture and receives the UNESCO-Japan Prize for its role asa global leader in promoting ESD in 2016 or the Okayama Model of ESD. The model's overall learning ecosystem
is also supported by the establishment of social education infrastructure, financial and technical support, and facilities
by the local government and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT).
The dominance of facilitation from local government
demonstrates the outstanding support of Okayama City's
municipalities' Environment Preservation Department andEnvironment Bureau, which represent the political subsystem of QHM. The community responds positively tothe top-down political intervention through the interaction
among the socio-cultural, the economic and the education
sub-system of QHM. As a result, it contributes to longterm governance and strong institutional support thatserves as a model for collective action of the socioecological system from the ESD Project. Kominkan's casestudy demonstrates how society overcomes challenges Figure 1. Quintuple Helix Model Version of Okayama
posed by sustainability transition experiments through Model of ESD) (Zen & Shibakawa 2022)
acceleration of social learning knowledge circulation in
Kominkan (Figure 1). These types of institutional andorganisational changes, which contribute to society's overall transformation agenda, indicate an eco-social
innovation approach (Zen & Shibakawa 2022) (https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/16070/education-forsustainable-development-how-can-changes-in-local-practices-help-address-global-challen).

The synergy of knowledge creation for education for sustainability in Malaysia covers series of webinar between
Okayama University and the International Islamic University of Malaysia, IIUM community, and the public. The
first webinar, Quintuple Helix Analysis of Okayama Model of Education for Sustainable Development, ESD:
Lesson for Malaysia and ‘Okayama Model of Education for Sustainable Development: The Japanese Experience’(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13C4e4rRKM. The second webinar is on River Care
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCz6QgwWC78). Both webinar is part of the activity under the reorientationof advances ESD. Overall, the study identified twopronged approach in the reorientation of education
towards ESD (Figure 2 & 3) which coined as the‘RaIS model’. The model combine the Okayama
model based on a citizen-led whole-city-based
approach and a whole-institution transformative,
WIT approach of IIUM has won the Bronze Award
from the Seoul International Invention Fair 2021. It
has the potential to be replicated in other communitybased approaches in reorienting advanced ESD. The
Figure 2. Reorientation Advance Education for
details about the model, kindly visit
Sustainable Development (RaIS) (Zen et al. 2022)
https://bit.ly/siifiium.