APPENDIX 24
Memorandum from the Institute of Education,
The Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU)
1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1 The Institute of Education is a major
provider of teacher education in the United Kingdom for pre-service
undergraduates and for postgraduates and also for practising teachers.
The Institute coordinates a European teacher education project
on education for sustainable development (ESD) called Sustainability
Education in European Primary Schools (SEEPS) funded by the European
Commission (EC). This project has been running since 1996 and
has developed materials to support school focused development
of whole school approaches to ESD and a website (jointly owned
with the University of Edinburgh) to support ESD in initial teacher
education (ITE). ESD was a component of the Institute's science
education submission to the recent research and assessment exercise
(RAE) in which the University was awarded a grade 4, the highest
grade achieved by any new university in the education unit of
assessment. The Institute has carried out evaluation work in the
field of ESD for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, the Institute
for Global Ethics and the Citizenship Foundation and was represented
at the meeting of the UNESCO Teacher Education Working Group on
ESD in South Africa. Members of the Institute have undertaken
consultancy work and visiting lectureships in ESD in Europe and
South Africa.
1.2 Throughout this submission the word
environmental will be used holistically to mean the integration
of the ecological, the political and the socio-economic.
2. Is the lack of public engagement and understanding
a real obstacle to the Government's progress on its sustainable
development agenda? Have there been any studies to show this?
2.1 Distinctions must be made between engagement,
awareness and understanding. Many surveys show a high level of
public awareness of the seriousness of the environmental crisis
(Wilkinson and Waterton, 1991, Froud, 1995, Rickinson 2001). However
when it comes to understanding the concepts underpinning issues
in sustainable development and sustainability the evidence shows
that such understanding often lacks scientific rigour (Rickinson,
2001). But awareness and understanding, while necessary, are insufficient
to promote lifestyle changes on a scale that will lead to the
adoption of sustainable practices at a societal let alone global
level. ESD is fundamentally about engagement with changing lifestyles
through transformed social practices (UNESCO, 1997) in the form
of direct actions based on applied knowledge and/or indirect actions
resulting from contemplative knowledge.
2.2 The real obstacle to progress is the
lack of action competence to act among the public. Many people
who believe that there is an environmental crisis and think that
they should do something about it lack the self-efficacy to proceed
with such action. Educational and other institutions that promulgate
ESD messages and then fail to adapt their institutional and organisational
practices so that these are congruent with such messages probably
exacerbate this problem of action competence. Such incongruence
socialises the acceptance of gaps between espoused theories and
theories in use (Argyris and Schon, 1996) as normal. In these
circumstances because the structures to require sustainable actions
are often not in place, people have an excuse for their own lack
of agency. This leads to a classic prisoner's dilemma scenario.
For example, there are too many cars on the road including mine,
but taking my car off the road for some of the time would not
make any difference and besides public transport is not reliable
enough for me to use it as a alternative.
2.3 The public also find it difficult to
understand what the Government's sustainable development agenda
is. Recent announcements about increased funding for road building
and reduced subsidies for the railways do not seem to cohere with
a drive for sustainable development. Government also has to realise
the importance of the contingency between message and action.
To pursue an agenda for sustainable development more effectively
more emphasis is needed on the processes of ESD.
3. Is there a need for a national strategy
for education for sustainable development? Would additional infrastructure
be required to deliver a coherent national strategy?
3.1 As there is already a national strategy
for ESD in Scotland strategies for the rest of the UK would seem
appropriate. What is crucial is what such strategies say, how
they are implemented and how they will be reviewed. A strategy
that simply revealed another gap between espoused theories and
theories in use would probably do more harm than good. A strategy
should be committed to promoting sustainable lifestyles, accompanied
by a framework that showed how the Government was putting the
policy structures in place that supported sustainable lifestyles
as well as the practical measures to promote sustainable practices
in all tiers of Government bureaucracy. As an educational document
there should be a strong focus on lifelong learning, educational
process and whole institution approaches (see section 5). What
is critical to the success of any ESD strategy in formal education
is the inclusion of provision for ESD in TTA standards. The most
effective way of making this provision would be for ITE students
to develop their competence as change agents in the context of
whole school approaches.
3.2 The current approach to ESD in schools
in England and Wales is flawed. ESD is seen largely as the responsibility
of those who teach citizenship, science and geography. The linear
psychological model that maintains that if people know that there
is an environmental crisis they will act for its resolution still
has a major influence on the layperson's perception of what is
effective in ESD. But most of those who work in ESD have rejected
this model (Sterling, 2001). Although there is a requirement for
active citizenship in secondary schools this requirement could
be met by controlled actions in which pupils carried out actions
decided by teachers in their school. Such actions miss the point
that the critical feature of successful ESD is the authentic involvement
of pupils in making decisions about sustainable development. The
fact that citizenship is not statutory in primary schools also
reinforces the view that policy makers see children and young
people as citizens in waiting rather than presently active citizens.
3.3 A social rather than a physical infrastructure
would help to promote ESD. As far as formal education is concerned
a regionally focused cascade network based on existing higher
education (HE) institutions, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs)
working in collaboration with LEAs could promote an ESD agenda
in schools, further education and HE. Local Agenda 21 (LA21) could
be used much better to promote lifelong sustainable development
through nonformal education in communities. The key to promoting
ESD is the development of social capital through the empowerment
of individuals and groups of people (including children) from
primary schools, to business enterprises and residential communities.
The local for most of us is our most significant action field
and through ESD we can come to perceive the global impact of such
local actions.
4. Are existing government campaigns such
as "Are you doing your bit" effective and well targeted?
Have past campaigns been evaluated? How could they be improved
in the future?
4.1 These campaigns seem predicated on raising
the issue of personal responsibility. They may be effective in
raising awareness of sustainable development issues but the crucial
question is whether they are promoting significant lifestyle changes?
As we saw above raising awareness is not sufficient to promote
sustainable development. At an aggregate level the campaigns do
not appear to be promoting agency as the UK's performance in relation
to waste management and transport appear to indicate. We are not
aware of any evaluation of these campaigns in relation to their
effect on lifestyle changes. Rigorous research on the impact of
ESD in influencing lifestyle changes is a relative rarity (Uzzell
et al., 1994, Rickinson 2001) and not an area of priority
research funding for the research councils.
4.2 Campaigns could be improved by being
more locally focused so that when campaigns were active they would
provide a local or regional contact that would facilitate community
level involvement. In this way campaigns could be more closely
tied to LA21. More links between LA21 and schools would be helpful.
5. Are there existing education programmes
relating to sustainable development which might be considered
to be good practice?
5.1 A significant but neglected approach
to ESD in the formal sector is the whole institution approach.
This in essence follows the exhortation in the Toyne Report (DfE,
1993) to practise what we teach (see Figure 1). Adopting whole
institution approaches offers the prospect of linking ESD to the
school development or improvement agenda rather than seeing ESD
solely as an aspect of the formal curriculum linked to citizenship,
geography and science. Such an approach also addresses the need
for awareness while catering for the affective and active education
that is a sine qua non of ESD.
5.2 The SEEPS Project directed by the Institute
advocates ESD as school development through whole institution
approaches. The Project fosters ESD as a process, as education
for empowerment and citizenship characterised by high levels of
pupil participation in decision making. It is how we educate for
sustainable development that is crucial in ESD. Sustainable development
requires the building of social capital at a local community level,
including schools, so that sustainable outcomes are substantially,
locally derived. ESD has to promote adults including teachers
working in collaborative cultures in which the school becomes
a microcosm of sustainable practices. When fully developed a whole
institution approach would include all the elements outlined in
Figure 1 below, but most organisations will be journeying towards
such a vision. If people are working in an environment in which
sustainable practices are second nature then these practices are
much more likely to become habitual and defection from them is
much less likely. Whole institution approaches synthesise cognitive,
affective and active education in ways that might have lessons
for organisations outside the education industry. Organisations
that follow whole school approaches will also move inexorably
towards greater self-evaluation in which young people as well
as adults become action researchers.
5.3 The SEEPS Project adopts a school focused
model of continuing professional development in which a teacher/teachers
from a school are trained as trainers. The Project then supplies
the trainer/trainers with the materials that can be used to support
professional development in their own school. As such training
develops the course materials become progressively customised
by the school as they are adapted to the school context. Providing
the materials in an electronic form facilitates customising. MMU
runs COMENIUS in-service courses for the EC to provide the training
for European educators in the use of the Project materials (see
Annex 1). The website has been developed from the SEEPS materials
to promote ESD in ITE. Effective programmes in ESD also need to
address the processes and management of change so that those who
wish to implement ESD see the difference between the rationale
for ESD (why), the vision for ESD (what) and the design, how we
achieve ESD. The failure to see these distinctions leads to much
adversarial writing in ESD that distances much academic input
from the practicalities of ESD provision.
5.4 We can have the best of both worlds
(Garratt and Shallcross, 2002). There are many different programmes
that promote whole school approaches such as Ecoschools, the Institute
for Global Ethics IMPETUS Award, Human Scale Education and the
Small School Movement. However there is an absence of rigorous
research into the benefits of such approaches and most of the
evidence for such approaches is anecdotal (Farrer with Hawkes,
2000). However the evidence does seem to show that schools that
adopt whole institution approaches do achieve the cognitive performance
targets that Government requires to demonstrate the achievement
of standards. At the same time these schools show less bullying,
greater self-efficacy in pupils, greater participation in after-school
activities, better ecological and energy saving practices, lower
truancy rates, pupils with greater connection to and more positive
feelings about their schools, closer bonds with peers and teachers,
parents who are more involved with school, and teachers who are
more innovative with curricula. This social and organisational
agenda is missing from so much of the ESD that takes place outside
school education.
6. CONCLUSION
6.1 We believe that the whole institution
approach to ESD needs to be encouraged through the school development
and improvement agenda. We also believe that the school focused
professional development model has much to commend it in providing
high quality CPD support for whole institution initiatives that
will counteract many of the trenchant criticism of school based
CPD in schools made by HMIs and OFSTED. We believe that these
concepts of whole institution approaches and institutionally focused
staff development are transferable from education to the worlds
of commerce and industry. We will be happy to provide oral evidence
in support of this document if required.
7. CONTACT DETAILS
February 2003
REFERENCES.
Argyris C. and Schon D. A. (1996) Organizational
Learning II, Theory, Method, and Practice, Reading, Mass.,
Addison-Wesley.
Department for Education (DfE) (1993) Environmental
Responsibility: An Agenda for Further and Higher Education,
London, DfE.
Farrer F. with Hawkes N. (2000) A Quiet Revolution:
Encouraging positive values in our children, London, Rider.
Froud K. (1995) Environmental Education: teaching
approaches and pupils' attitudes, in Leal Filho W. and McDowell
J. (eds.) Proceedings of the National Seminar on Environmental
Education Research, Bradford, European Research and Training
Centre on Environmental Education, pp.30-38.
Garratt D. and Shallcross T. (2002) An Evaluation
of the Citizenship Values Award Pilot Scheme, Crewe, The Manchester
Metropolitan University for the Institute of Global Ethics and
the Citizenship Foundation.
Rickinson M. (2001) Learners and Learning in
Environmental Education: a critical review of the research, Environmental
Education Research, 7(3), pp.207-320.
Sterling S. (2001) Sustainable Education
Revisioning Learning and Change, Dartington, Green Books.
UNESCO (1997) Educating for a Sustainable
Future A Transdisciplinary Vision for Concerted Action, Paris,
UNESCO.
Uzzell D. Davallon J. Fontes P. J. Gottesdiener
H. Jensen B.B. Kofoed J. Uhrenholdt G. Vognsen C. (1994) Children
as Catalysts of Environmental Change, Brussels, European Commission
Directorate General for Science Research and Development.
Wilkinson D. and Waterton A. (1991) Public
Attitudes To the Environment in Scotland, Edinburgh, The Scottish
Office.
Annex 1.
COMENIUS CPD COURSE: UK-017/18-2002-03. "CREATING
A BETTER ENVIRONMENT IN OUR SCHOOL." The SEEPS Project.
COMENIUS Course Database:http://193.14.218.19.81/CourseManagement/ASP/CourseList.asp
Institute of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University,
(MMU), Crewe, United Kingdom.
This course will run at the Institute of Education
, MMU, Crewe twice, from:
1. UK-017 7-12 July 2002:
1140/820.
2. UK-018 6-11 April 2003:
1175/850.
These courses can be paid for, including accommodation
and travel, through EC COMENIUS National Agencies for non UK applicants.
If you are interested in either course please contact the course
director or administrator at the addresses below. The higher fee
for each course includes hotel accommodation, the lower fee is
for university accommodation. The course cost, included in the
fee, is
447.
Evidence (OECD / ENSI) suggests that the most
effective sustainability education (SE) occurs in schools with
an ethos that supports and sustains sound environmental practice.
The SEEPS project has developed materials, collaboratively, that
will enable teachers to contribute to and sustain this approach.
THEMES
The roles of teachers as citizens and classroom
practitioners are addressed by focusing on personal values and
teaching strategies. School contexts are examined through cross-curricular
models. By considering schools as agencies for community involvement
and catalysts of change, the wider links with society emphasised
in Agenda 21, are highlighted.
The role of environmental ethics as a basis
for deciding environmental actions is considered through reflection
and discussion.
The links between environment development and the
need for futures perspectives ensure that education for sustainable
development, is clearly addressed.
OBJECTIVES
— Review the extent to which SE is
included in existing primary level in-service in the EU.
— Identify current provisions and deficiencies,
with particular respect to whole school approaches (WSA's).
— Utilise the experience of partner
institutions to design in-service teacher training materials that
will encourage WSA's to SE.
— Foster international collaboration.
— Promote a cascade model of SE to
meet the changing demands of in-service training as school autonomy
increases in many European countries.
PROCESS
The SEEPS network involves educationalists from
11 different countries. It includes a range of professionals interested
in SE; primary school teachers, teacher educators, representatives
of ministries of education and NGOs. SEEPS is based on training
trainers and has been funded by DGXI and DGXXII of the European
Commission & Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) to focus on developing
materials to support trainers working in school based programmes.
The project started with a seminar in Edinburgh in 1996 at which
a whole school approach to SE was agreed as the central theme.
Sub-groups have been established to develop materials in seven
areas:
1. entry points into sustainability education;
2. values and attitudes in sustainability education;
3. cultural perspectives on sustainability education;
4. institutional change and sustainability education;
5. teaching through the environment;
6. practical environmental management;
7. school self-evaluation in sustainability education;
Visits to local primary schools are included
in each course.
| 
