UNESCO

UK National Commission for UNESCO Policy Brief on Education for Sustainable Development                

 The UK National Commission for UNESCO’s policy brief on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), was published in March 2013 and authored by some of the UK’s leading experts in the field. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can be thought of as a process of learning how to make decisions that consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology and equity of all communities. Building the capacity for such future-oriented action is considered by many sources to be a key task of education.

This policy brief provides an account of the current status of ESD across the UK. It draws on evidence from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (education is a devolved responsibility in the UK) and sets out some of the characteristics of best practice and an analysis of future opportunities for enhancing the core role of education and learning in the pursuit of a more sustainable future.

 The most recent surveys of progress on the implementation of ESD in the UK were undertaken by the UK National Commission for UNESCO [3,4].  This paper builds on that work and sets out a succinct account of the current status of ESD across the UK.  It draws on evidence from various sources from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales,   The Brief’s main purpose was to inform the UK government of progress on the integration of ESD across all of the learning contexts in which issues relating to sustainability can be taught and learned.  It also assessed how far the UK had realised the objectives of the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD, 2005– 2014). 

The goals of the Decade [6] can be broken down into four key objectives:

• facilitating networking and collaboration among stakeholders in ESD;
• fostering greater quality of teaching and learning of environmental topics;
• supporting countries in achieving their millennium development goals through ESD efforts; and
• providing countries with new opportunities and tools to reform education.

The UK government signed up to the Decade in 2005, sharing the belief that education has a key role in the development of the values, behaviour and lifestyles required for a sustainable future.  Reports and international updates on the Decade, for which UNESCO is the lead agency, are regularly issued [7,8,9,10].

The UNESCO policy brief sets out to provide an analysis of progress in support of the UK government’s objective for sharing best practice in all learning contexts.  This breadth of view has now assumed a much more important policy priority given the UK coalition government’s current focus on stimulating economic growth by creating a substantial green economy linked to climate change adaptation in the UK [11,12,13], and the Scottish Government’s [14] separate and somewhat more extensive commitments.  The enhanced national focus on quality and standards in all forms of educational provision is also highly relevant since contemporary evidence [15,16] indicates that good practice in ESD leads to better learner outcomes.  It is also timely as UNESCO debates the impact of the DESD and its follow up beyond 2014.

Earlier UNESCO reports in 2008 and 2010 [4], offered an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of ESD provision at different points in the DESD providing a more general overview of activity in key areas, including significant policy changes, events and achievements, and new research and literature.  Their purpose was to provide a broad view of key drivers that could inform ongoing research about UK progress on ESD and the DESD.  In the first half of the Decade, there was evidence of a wide range of sustainability-focused interventions within civil society by government, businesses, trade unions, academia, third sector organizations and professional groups.  These focused on changes in policy, regulation and practice, in areas such as carbon reduction, in the use of Fairtrade products, social responsibility, energy savings, waste reduction, etc., and the 2010 report noted that many would have learned a great deal about sustainability and its promotion through this. 

Many of the conclusions in that report remain pertinent.  These include:

1. The scope for mainstreaming sustainable development learning into government operations, and for government departments to enhance their collaboration over ESD, and render it more coherent, remains considerable.
2. Climate change was a particularly strong driver of ESD.  This was partly a result of the government’s increased engagement in climate change-related matters, including establishment of a dedicated ministry, and a national media campaign on carbon reduction, but also because of the increased engagement of non-governmental organisations (NGO) and grassroots actors on climate change.  There was concern that this strong focus on climate change obscured the broader focus of both sustainability and ESD.  Resisting the reification of something such as climate change education that might rival ESD, was seen as important, as was seeking to ensure that where climate change was a legitimate learning focus, within formal programmes of study, for example, its purpose was to help learners gain plural perspectives on the scientific and other issues, appreciate their possible implications, and think about what their own intellectual and practical responses might be. 
3. There are continuing tensions between campaigning, activism, awareness-raising and behaviour change (the last of these is still strongly encouraged by government) and more open-ended, and open-minded, learning in relation to sustainability through an exploration of inherent subtleties, complexities and uncertainties by which learners can be helped to come to their own understandings, values and commitments to action.  Whilst it is clear that there were those who sincerely believed that it is too late for this liberal view to be taken, the evidence that people do not react well to preaching or doom-laden messages was considered compelling, as was the value that educationalists have a responsibility to explore the complexities of issues and encourage dialogue across disciplines, interests and sectors. 
4. Networks and partnerships for ESD in higher education were well established, encouraged by the Higher Education Academy (HEA), funding councils, the National Union of Students (NUS), and professional networks.  Partnerships for ESD across schools also flourished, in particular through regional and devolved administration networks that involve government and non-government stakeholders working in partnership.  Sustainable school, Eco-school and global learning programmes enjoyed support and popularity from government and non-government stakeholders.  Across sectors, there was a clear need for a greater focus on teaching / learning whilst acknowledging that estates, procurement, management more generally, and research, do themselves give scope for learning: a point that funding councils acknowledge. 
5. Whilst ESD was growing in post-16 learning sectors, it was at an early stage of development in adult and community learning, though there were excellent examples of practice in these settings.  Although some vocational provision has made significant progress in integrating ESD into its courses, in many other sectors the integration had been slow or non-existent.  Although there was increasing interest shown by the professions in how to incorporate sustainable development into continuing professional development, this remained a minor initiative when set against professional training as a whole. 
6. There was a lack of connection, and hence little synergy, between learning experiences in formal education and what might be learnt through community involvement and third sector capacity building.  The growth of the Transition Network [18,19] represents one example where community led innovation was beginning to be supported by academic research.  Another dimension was a tendency to see change focused around what individuals and families can do, ignoring that many issues and decisions are only amenable to more concerted social action.  Developing social action skills through practice in real-life contexts was seen as a tangible example of where connection between sectors is indispensible. 
7. There was a growth in ESD-related events such as conferences and seminars, with an increase in the number of research and evaluative studies on ESD, though not on post-16 learning and skills.  However, whilst the phrase ESD was increasingly used, this did not imply a shared understanding.  More research was seen as necessary on where the main gaps in ESD were across the UK, and to show differentials in progress and level of activity and action to support policy in the different sectors.  One prominent gap, for example, was the lack of an overview of progress made (as opposed to actions taken).  No agreement on major gaps, and ideas on how they might be plugged had been forthcoming.

 In summary the policy brief states that:

“Good practice in ESD exists at all levels and in most learning contexts across the UK. It is characterized by good teaching, enhanced learner outcomes and linked to the professional standards and qualifications of teachers who are part of innovative communities and networks of ESD practice which communicate and share best practice. Nevertheless, developments in ESD are still relatively small scale, mostly based on projects within fixed time frames and resources; hence, the incorporation of good practice in all sectors is uneven across the UK. There is no coherent view at policy or practice level about how ESD can most appropriately be experienced by learners, in a progressive sense across all age groups and how it can contribute to improved learner outcomes.

 In England and Northern Ireland there is currently less policy emphasis on sustainable development and this has inhibited the wider adoption of good practice in ESD .In Wales, a significant emphasis has been placed on sustainable development by the Welsh Government although the prominence given to ESD (ESDGC) in national policy has diminished .

In Scotland, there is a greater focus on a more integrated and coherent approach to sustainable development and ESD with education being recognized by policy makers and practitioners as a key enabler in the transition to a sustainable society

There is no overarching UK Strategy for Sustainable Development which sets out a clear vision about the contribution learning can make to its sustainable development goals. This is needed. The wider adoption of ESD would benefit from an overall strategic framework which puts it firmly at the core of the education policy agenda in all the UK’s administrative jurisdictions. This would provide much needed coherence, direction and impetus to existing initiatives and scale up and build on existing good practice as well as preventing unnecessary duplication of effort and resources. A pan-UK forum should be established for overseeing the promotion, implementation and evaluation of ESD across the UK, with a clear remit to work collaboratively with the UK Government and all three devolved administrations, whilst respecting their jurisdictional policy remits.”

The concluding recommendation for UNESCO is:

“UNESCO should review how effective the Decade has been in supporting the implementation of ESD. Most evidence indicates a rather ill-focused and half-hearted awareness campaign leading to a patchy impact.  We recommend that the programme framework should place more emphasis on promoting the good practice that has taken place in recent years; communicating and celebrating those successes that have become embedded in main-stream educational provision and which have contributed directly to enhanced quality through improved learner outcomes and achievements.”