The professional development of teachers in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been identified as ‘the priority of priorities.’ But unfortunately, in some developing countries like Nigeria, teacher education is seen as a key strategy that is yet to be effectively utilized to embed education for sustainable development in school system. Sustainable development is one of the greatest challenges of 21st century for all disciplines and over the past three decades there has been redevelopment of curriculum in many of the developed nations in the world consistent with the ideology of “education for sustainable development”. This study investigates pre-service teachers’ knowledge and understanding of education for sustainable development in Nigeria. The study also compares the understanding of those in science discipline with their counterparts in other disciplines as in arts and social sciences. Results revealed lack of adequate knowledge of ESD and variation in terms of understanding based on pre-service teachers’ area of discipline. It is therefore recommended among others that ESD should be properly integrated into all existing teacher education programmes in order to reorient teacher education to address sustainability.