Select Committee on Environmental Audit Written Evidence


APPENDIX 28

Memorandum from the National Association for Environmental Education (UK) (NAEE)

1.  INTRODUCTION

  1.1  The UK National Association for Environmental Education is the association for teachers and lecturers, head teachers, advisors, inspectors, education officers and trainees and all who are professionally concerned with any aspect of education and the environment. NAEE's aim is to promote and support environmental education throughout formal education and in the work of NGOs.

  1.2  NAEE is a national voice for everyone in education whose work concerns the environment. NAEE believes that an understanding of relationships between humans, the natural world and the built environment is a prerequisite for sustainable development. NAEE continues, therefore to promote and further develop the best practice in environmental education out of which sustainable development has grown. NAEE provides practical support for teachers across all phases and subjects of formal education and participates in government educational initiatives actively seeking to enhance environmental education. It provides information about environmental education and links to other environmental groups through its website, and it promotes new ideas and discussion about environmental education through its conferences, INSET/CPD provision, and its termly journal (Environmental Education).

  1.3  NAEE believes that environmental education has an important role in relation to sustainable development. Environmental education is crucial in helping young people to become responsible and caring citizens through developing the skills of being able to think responsibly for oneself (and with others). It can provide the motivation to care about the major ecological and sustainability issues that affect the future of the planet. This means that environmental education, sustainable development and learning are inextricably linked because education in its many forms is needed to help people learn what the environment embraces and what sustainable development can mean.

2.  ESD ACROSS THE CURRICULUM.

  2.1  There is currently a need for integrated and integrative leadership, within and across sectors, which synthesises existing knowledge and best practice, and makes them available to ongoing initiatives. Such leadership would include:

    —  Commissioning research into the mainstreaming of sustainable development issues into learning;

    —  Commissioning research into the links between sustainable development and life-long learning;

    —  Making better use of existing research, long term cross sector strategic planning and the development of transferable skills and flexibility;

    —  Cross sector monitoring and evaluation of progress in education relating to sustainable development;

    —  Identification, support and coordination of champions throughout different sectors;

    —  Networking of practitioners in order to examine effective practice;

    —  Promotion of and leadership contributions to UK, European, Commonwealth and international developments.

  2.2  NAEE believes that all key stages, including the Foundation stage, and all curriculum subjects, provide the opportunity to learn about the environment and sustainable development. For some subjects, particularly geography and science, the requirement to do so is already embedded across the key stages, but many opportunities exist for other subject areas to play a part in fostering environmental concern in learners. Non-subject based areas of study such as PSHE and Citizenship offer important opportunities for the exploration of environmental and sustainability issues in cross-curricular contexts. We welcome existing curriculum developments that promote sustainable development, but we believe that, for the school curriculum to set out to secure learners' personal commitment to sustainable development as envisaged by QCA, schools and teachers have to encourage people to think about sustainable development itself. Only in this way can the curriculum bring a critical focus to bear on the "relationship between social development and economic opportunity on the one hand, and the requirements of the environment on the other" (UNESCO 1997). We would argue therefore that environmental and sustainable development education need to be perceived as an integral part of learning, not bolt-on extras. They should be subject to inspection; a required focus in all initial teacher education courses, and accredited through professional development. A coherent, integrated and well-resourced strategy at a national level is required to coordinate the work of schools, colleges and local authorities in developing education for sustainable development.

3.  THE ROLE OF NAEE IN RELATION TO ESD

  3.1  The incorporation of EE and SDE into all phases and subjects of formal education is a challenge. It requires the development of new pedagogies, discussion of new teaching and learning strategies and assessment techniques, and a sharing of existing good practice.

  3.2  NAEE seeks to:

    —  Identify good practice;

    —  Develop resources;

    —  Provide INSET and CPD;

    —  Support the collaborative working of educators to raise the level of concern and action for the environment and sustainable development;

    —  Participate in government education initiatives;

    —  Promote the incorporation of ESD in academic and vocational courses.

February 2003





 
previous page contents next page

House of Commons home page Parliament home page House of Lords home page search page enquiries index

© Parliamentary copyright 2003
Prepared 31 July 2003