A panel of graduate school professors presented students with a variety of perspectives on the impact education can have on sustainable development last night in Lehman Hall.

About 50 people attended the discussion, presented by the Association of International Educators. Mediated by Merilee Grindle, Mason professor of international development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, the panelists approached the issue from diverse perspectives.

"Sustainable development is one of those topics...that is very hard to be against," Grindle said. "However, there is a wide range of notions of what sustainable development means."

The first panelist, Suzanne Grant Lewis, an assistant professor at the School of Education, discussed the importance of "social participation" in designing school systems around the world.

"Just any kind of education will not contribute to sustainable development," Lewis said. "The design of curricula, instructional methods and standards for evaluating success must be participatory."

Lewis emphasized increasing the involvement of currently disenfranchised groups including parents.

"We're not going to get anywhere if we have the World Bank and [other international agencies] designing systems," she said.

John Comings, senior research associate at the School of Education, discussed the impact of literacy on sustainable development.

"There are currently one billion adults in the world who have never had a chance to go to school," Comings said. "Add to them the adults who never had the chance to develop sufficient literacy skills, and we're up to two billion."

In a time "when all countries are moving in the direction of a demand for higher literacy skills," this is especially alarming, he said.

He added that "literacy helps the efficiency of the health communication system."

A third panelist, Felton Earls, professor of human behavior and development in the faculty of public health and child psychiatry, expressed skepticism about sustainable development.

Development is difficult to understand without an improved understanding of the world's social systems, Earls said.

"Education must address this social system," he said, adding that society should strive for "better understanding of the impact on race, ethnicity and group rivalries in many nations."

Another area where increased comprehension is needed is that of children and education, Earls said.