AWARENESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ATTITUDE IN THE CONTEXT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WITHIN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY

Since contemporary economical development trends are not sustainable, and given the fact that public involvement, education and training are key to a society that aims toward sustainability, it is obvious that the role of education is to trigger and develop changes in the individual's values system, behavioral patterns, skills, and attitudes. Providing benchmarks in establishing a general framework on education for sustainable development represents a key feature, thus making it possible to highlight the essential (basic) features that must be included in every program aiming at awareness raising and ecological attitude education, especially in the case of target groups others than grammar school, primary school, high school or university students. Therefore, any institution or organization that wishes to develop a specific ecological attitude education program in the framework of sustainable development may use the established guidelines in order to define the main directions of action and the specific tools that must be used to get the optimal response from the learners. The paper presents an analysis of all of the institutional sources aiming at raising awareness in order to develop an ecological attitude and behavior. The possible directions of intervention by formal education (general education) at all school levels and by professionalization in secondary and academic education are also discussed. Institutional measures of nonformal education are further presented, that are implemented by governement organisms (such as the National Agency for Environmental Protection and the Office of Environmental Police and Assistance) as well as environmental and sustainable development-oriented non-governmental organizations.