APPENDIX 26
Memorandum from the Living Earth Foundation
Living Earth Foundation welcomes the Government's
initiative in setting up this inquiry. As an organisation Living
Earth Foundation has been working on issues of education and awareness
in the context of sustainable development since 1988. Living Earth
is a member organisation of the Council for Environmental Education.
Personally, I have been working in this field
as an educator, researcher and programme developer both in the
UK and overseas since 1983. I am a member of the IUCN-World Conservation
Union's Commission on Education and Communication.
This submission attempts to address the specific
questions raised by the Environmental Audit Committee.
Question 1. Is a 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? Please refer to practical examples where possible.
The answer to both questions is "yes".
Education that does not offer multiple opportunities for young
people to participate in their own society will lead to a population
that is passive and unresponsive to exhortations by Government
to "do their bit". It's not that they don't know about
the issues—it's that they have no notion of what exactly
they can do about them—thus they appear intractable.
You ask for a specific study; we suggest: Macnaghten
P, Grove-White R, Jacobs M, Wynne B (1995) Public Perceptions
and Sustainability in Lancashire: Indicators, Institutions, Participation.
Centre for Study of Environmental Change, Lancaster.
In this study, the authors argue that that there
is a direct correlation between people's perception of a problem
being apparently intractable and the tendency to not register
this as a current concern. This is further justified by their
review of recent qualitative research, a key observation being
that:
. . . people's receptivity to knowledge . . .
is shaped strongly, if tacitly, by their sense of agency—that
is, by their implicit sense of their own power or freedom to act
upon or use that knowledge. (Macnaghten et al 1995 p 15)
Question 2. Is there a need for a national strategy
for education for sustainable development? Would additional infrastructure
be required to deliver a coherent, national strategy?
A considerable body of research identifies significant
life experiences as important in predisposing individuals to environmentally
responsible behaviour. This suggests that our "real"
(or broader environmental) education is characterised by serendipity
rather than schooling. It is thus untenable (and probably unethical)
to attempt to plan for everybody's broader environmental education.
However, we can create important learning opportunities
in preparation for engagement in social processes when people
will be called upon to consider the connectedness of their world,
starting from their own perspective. This needs to begin at pre-school
and continue through full-time education to adulthood.
One stumbling block is that, for adults, real
opportunities for engagement are often missed. We learn from example.
If our formal education espouses the values of participation and
we don't see this carried through to adult life—what we
learn is to mis-trust the authorities that present us with such
an inconsistency.
Authorities that make plans at local and national
level often lack the skills required for stimulating, managing
and maintaining genuine stakeholder dialogue across sectors (business,
government and civil society). Opportunities for participation
are often provided in regeneration projects but even here the
attempts are usually short-term and mechanistic.
Town planning is one obvious process to point
to but there are many more areas in society where opportunities
for participation are missed. The National Curriculum is a case
in point. There is no designated space, for example, for development
of a regional and local curriculum (as one will find in Russia)
and no requirement for parents and other members of the neighbouring
community to be engaged in what schools are doing (something that
is commonplace in Danish schools).
A strategy is therefore essential; not that
each component necessarily has to be directly linked to the others—this
would be impractical and exclude unforeseen connections. However,
the components that can be planned are educational experiences
that help us think about what we are learning (learning to learn),
clarify our own values and participate in the processes that shape
our socio-economic and biophysical environment.
Living Earth has developed a five-level strategy:
— Public relations (raising awareness
of actors/stakeholders involved).
— Awareness raising/putting issues
on the agenda (becoming aware of the need for change).
— Improving access to information/building
knowledge (understanding the need for change).
— Stakeholder dialogue down to individual/household
level (developing ownership of a personal change strategy).
— Experiential learning/learning by
doing (being the change).
Question 3. Are existing awareness raising 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?
I'm afraid this campaign has left me cold. Effectiveness
should be measured against the objectives of the campaign. Did
the planners of this campaign expect anyone to do their bit (ie
change their behaviour)? If not, it was a mystifying choice of
slogan. If "yes", then it demonstrates a woeful lack
of understanding in relation to how we learn.
We are truly influenced by those we know and
trust. We best clarify our thoughts and values through dialogue.
Mass media is remote and necessarily ignores our individual starting
places; it is therefore an unlikely change agent.
Media campaigns are valuable for setting atmosphere,
putting issues on the agenda and suggesting short-term actions
such as voting or buying a product. Once we have bought the product
our experience of that product will determine whether we ever
buy it again.
Sustainable development surely involves us thinking
carefully about our actions, advertising sells a message that
attaches a feeling or value to a product. The connection of course
is not real and it can only work if we don't think to hard.
Social marketing seeks to analyse and understand
a population so that the message can start from the perceptions
of the majority. This still relies on media and thus "selling"
an idea quickly. If it was really so successful (and I've seen
no evidence to prove that this alone has been effective—there
is always something else going on) it would raise the ethical
question of `Who are we to convince others of what to do without
their being fully engaged in the decision-making process?
Perhaps one of the media's greatest assets is
its glamour which can be harnessed to catch the imagination of
young people as they use the tools of the trade, cameras, tape-recorders,
etc. to investigate and present their local story. An understanding
of how the media works, not only technically but also its mesh
of business connections, would also be a most valuable aspect
of education in relation to sustainable development.
Question 4. Are there existing education programmes
relating to sustainable development which might be considered
good practice? These might include in-house training schemes for
ESD for employees and stakeholders within businesses, the civil
service, and other organisations. Are there elements of successful,
strategic communication programmes in other areas which could
be applied to ESD? For example, from other Government awareness
campaigns such as those for drink driving, AIDS and smoking.
Firstly, I don't believe that the issue is one
of putting ESD content into education programmes—it's about
the way we learn.
Do those with authority set a good example?
Are people challenged to see different perspectives
and make up their own minds about an issue?
To be brief, here are some cases that I have
come across that strike me as working in exactly the right direction
for ESD:
Strategies promoted by the Campaign for Learning
in early years education (open classrooms, children choosing
what/when to learn.
The action competence approach developed
in Denmark: School children/adolescents encouraged to investigate
issues, envision how things might be done differently, taking
actions based on their own decisions and recording any changes
that take place (vis-a-vis the issue in themselves)
The Rural Higher Education Institutes
of Gujarat, India. Masters level courses require months of living
with people who live/work in the field of study. Connections to
other people's lives are forged—even banking courses develop
a social conscience.
Planning for Real: a stakeholder dialogue approach
to planning developed by the Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation.
Used to great effect by the Planning Department of Brecon Beacons
National Park in the late 1990s and supported simultaneously
by a schools-based programme called Sustainability for Real.
Philosophy for Children, promoted by
SAPERE (the Society for the Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry
and Reflection in Education)—provides well structured opportunities
for young people of all ages and abilities to develop clear thinking
strategies, clarify values and explore issues from multiple perspectives.
Studies show that enhanced academic achievement is a highly consistent
side-effect of this approach.
COBET (Complimentary Basic Education in Tanzania)
developed by UNICEF and the Tanzania Institute of Education, targeting
out-of-school-youth. The curriculum was developed after extensive
research among parents and children to ensure that the learners'
needs and those of society were being met. The programme is delivered
by facilitators rather than teachers; children spend fewer hours
in school (thus receiving a "real" environmental education
at home and/or work) yet overtake the achievement levels of their
school-based counterparts by up to several years. Not an off-the-peg
solution for the UK but a useful example of principles in effective
practice.
February 2003
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