Correlation between ideas of sustainable development and principles of Lithuanian education reform

The article discusses correlations between basic ideas of education for sustainability, which have been widely cultivated in late XX and early XXI centuries, and those of Lithuanian education reform, which was introduced in 1988. The aim of investigation is to reveal correlations between the ideas of Lithuanian education reform of the first stage and essential concepts of the world’s educational development of XXI century. The author raises a hypothesis that ideas of education for sustainability are not novel to Lithuanian education system. The investigation is conducted using methods of documental and scientific research analysis, as well as comparative analysis. Nowadays Lithuanian education researchers tend to focus on comparison of the ideas of education for sustainability of the world with those conveyed in the documents of Lithuanian education reform of the early XXI century. Those documents contain some clearly expressed parallels with global and European educational concepts. This article, however, concentrates on another period, the period of 1988-1997. That is the time, when the idea of balanced development was already spreading in the world, but the critical role of education for this development was not acknowledged yet. The author has chosen to investigate some essential principles of education for sustainability and Lithuanian education reform, which are hypothetically considered common. These are such principles as transformational function of education, holistic perception of reality, integrity, cultivation of critical and creative thinking as well as developing of virtue oriented attitudes. The analysis of conceptual documents of Lithuanian education reform and evaluation of methodological explanations of its models confirm the hypothesis which is raised in the articleVytauto Didžiojo universitetasŠvietimo akademij