Examination of Witness (Questions 120-139)
14 DECEMBER 2004
DR ANDY
JOHNSTON
Q120 Mr Ainsworth: But they would still
need to be able to build a bridge?
Dr Johnston: Yes, absolutely.
Q121 Mr Ainsworth: I do not think I have
quite succeeded in understanding what it is and why you describe
it as a tool. It just sounds like a bit of additional curricular
information.
Dr Johnston: Where it becomes
a tool is that if it were curricular information, we would write
it down and hand it out to whoever was running, for example, a
civil engineering course. However, in reality, all civil engineering
courses are slightly different and they have their own nuances,
their own particular strengths and weaknesses, so what we would
present to the academics running the course is a way of thinking
about course development so that they were able to integrate sustainability
literacy, so, within the nuances of their own course, they could
think up ways that they would add different ways of teaching and
elements of the knowledge and skills.
Q122 Mr Ainsworth: How widespread is
the take-up of this technique?
Dr Johnston: It is relatively
limited so far because it is a tool which is still in development.
We have tried it on four or five universities on four or five
courses. It is as prone as any other sustainable development initiative
to the fact that the bodies that sit around the university are
not tuned into either this tool or any particular tool for making
the curriculum more sustainable, so the quality agencies and again
the funding bodies, et cetera, et cetera, are not
in a position to help to encourage courses to become more sustainable.
Q123 Mr Ainsworth: So it is basically
like so much else in that it depends on the personal interest
and goodwill of various people running various courses in various
academic institutions?
Dr Johnston: It depends on that,
but also encouragement from on top, I would say.
Q124 Mr Ainsworth: And is that encouragement
forthcoming?
Dr Johnston: Not yet, no.
Q125 Mr Ainsworth: Just leading on from
there actually is the Tomlinson Report. We have had a lot of
evidence from people who were frankly disappointed with the Tomlinson
Report as it hardly referred to education for sustainable development.
You seem to take a rather more positive view—why?
Dr Johnston: Because we are natural
optimists, I suppose! We are pleased with the fact that the general
blending, the more holistic approach of Tomlinson is something
which we would applaud, so it is really in terms of its overall
direction and the fact that it is so radical as it means that
whoever is affected by it will be going through a change process
and that is an opportunity to intervene and get sustainable development
on to the agenda.
Q126 Mr Ainsworth: Yes, but it is an
opportunity which will not be taken if it is not specifically
required. That is the history of sustainable development, is it
not, that it has to be made to happen in order for anything to
happen at all and since Tomlinson has effectively blanked it out,
I cannot see that your welcome optimism is actually justified?
Dr Johnston: I can only hope that
you are wrong.
Mr Ainsworth: So can I!
Q127 Mr Thomas: As well as the formal
education sector which we have been looking at, and Tomlinson
is particularly concerned with post-16, of course we have also
got the whole range of informal, what I think we call these days,
"learning opportunities" or youth work, as it used to
be. It seems to be a paradox that anecdotally at least these issues
come out as ones that the public and young people in particular
are interested in, the environment, sustainable development, saving
the planet, as it were, and yet it does not seem to be embedded
into informal learning at all, into youth work, into the opportunities
that people have throughout their lives when they come across
institutions in terms of learning. Do you have any idea why that
is? Is it that the anecdotal evidence is wrong and people are
not interested in these issues anyway or is it that the institutions
involved in that sector just are not taking the opportunity to
promote education for sustainable development?
Dr Johnston: My feeling is that
generally it is the latter. With the institutions, again it is
not a conscious decision not to promote sustainable development,
but it is either a lack of awareness or a lack of capacity to
be able to respond to the enquiries from students in a positive
and meaningful way. Again you come back to building the capacity
of the individuals within the education sector so that they are
able to deliver on a demand which is out there, but not necessarily
very clearly explained.
Q128 Mr Thomas: But can you give us any
examples of an organisation or a project in that sector which
is engaging people in informal learning and is at the same time
getting their attention about some of these issues around environmental
education or whatever? Can you think of any examples of where
that is actually happening?
Dr Johnston: I suppose it depends
on how informal you want to take this, but the example that I
would give where it does work which the Forum is aware of is around
our Masters programme where the Masters students are part of a
formal process, but a lot of that formal process is about them
doing work-based learning within different sectors of society,
within government, business, media, et cetera. When they are in
those situations, they are in effect in an informal learning process
with the organisations they are working with and their supervisor
becomes a mentor and a teacher in terms of sustainable development
and capacity-building for them. Where you have that teacher who
understands sustainable development, is doing it day upon day
and really is able to help the students through, you get a fantastic
learning experience. That would be a really good example, I would
say, of that informal learning working well.
Q129 Mr Thomas: I should declare an interest
and say that one of the students has been with me in that way,
so I do not know whether he learned anything, but there we are,
I accept the principle of what you are saying! Moving on to the
Government and whether the Government is getting its message across
because there is obviously a leadership role here, in your memo
to the Committee, you did refer very specifically to "structural
difficulties" that are slowing down or even, you said, "derailing"
attempts to change behaviour. I just wondered if you could tell
us a little more about what these structural difficulties are
and why they should be even derailing attempts because when you
use a word like "derail", it suggests sort of an act
of will rather than simply just a structural difficulty. It sounds
like perhaps people are even taking advantage of structural difficulties
in order to put barriers in the way of progress.
Dr Johnston: Can I ask exactly
what phrase you are referring to?
Mr Thomas: The quote I have here is,
"structural difficulties that slow or even derail attempts
to translate any policy into changed behaviour on the ground",
and then you refer to "barriers".
Q130 Chairman: It is page 2, the third
paragraph, I think: "We are also aware of the structural
difficulties that slow or even derail attempts to translate any
policy into changed behaviour on the ground".
Dr Johnston: Yes, sorry. I think
what we are referring to there is what you might call the "project
mindset", or the "initiative mindset" within government
and the feeling that if sustainable development comes along, that
is something they may be able to put a little bit of cash behind
and run as a project. Generally, my feeling is that that is not
a great approach to any particular thinking that you want to achieve,
but if there is one particular ambition that is completely scuppered
by initiative and project thinking, it is sustainable development.
Sustainable development is all about joining things up and it
is all about doing things at the same time, and government joining
up, as we all know, is a challenging agenda at the best of times,
as is Civil Service joining up. That is what we are referring
to as the structural difficulties. If sustainable development
is going to happen, core funding streams need to be supporting
it, core policy streams need to be supporting it, and the achievement
of those core funding streams is very difficult structurally within
government as it stands at the moment.
Q131 Mr Thomas: So you were really referring
to the interest the Government has in specific campaigns rather
than a holistic approach to the whole issue. Again I suppose I
could ask you, in principle, what would you like to see put in
its place to take away that mindset, but also are there examples
even at government level where there is a more cross-cutting,
holistic approach taken where you would say, "Look at what
Defra is doing here and DfES is doing there"? Are there any
examples where the Government has managed to get itself out of
that straitjacket?
Dr Johnston: That is a loaded
question! I think the guiding principle is that if the Government
is actually very, very serious about it, then getting the message
across becomes extremely easy. The difficulty that you have is
if the Government is paying lip-service to a particular initiative,
then people can tell they are trapped in a public relations exercise.
Q132 Mr Thomas: Is that what happens
more often than not?
Dr Johnston: Well, it is easy
to see examples of where it has worked well with things like drink-driving
and I think you could put a case forward now that the Government's
position on smoking is now becoming so clear that people now very
clearly understand what it is that they are trying to achieve
as part of this process and then it is communicated to people.
That is the way round that it should be, so the Government needs
to be very clear about what it means by "sustainable development"
in a very clear form and obviously we hope that the next sustainable
development policy will clarify things a great deal and then
actually get on with implementing it and meaning it and monitoring
its own progress in a meaningful way. If it does that, then the
whole communication task becomes very easy for them.
Q133 Mr Thomas: But where in that communication
task does the Government in particular here change information
where I think we can accept that the Government is giving out
information, albeit maybe in a rather bitty way with lots of different
websites which you have referred to as well and lots of different
projects? The information is given out there with the idea that
that somehow raises awareness and then people change their behaviour,
but I think what you are saying is that that is not necessarily
happening, so in what way could the Government, therefore, change
behaviour if it is not about giving information? Governments are
very cautious, are they not, about telling people what to do and
they like to say, "Well, we'll give you the information about
what would happen if you don't do this", but what about what
happens if you do do this and they make you make your own choices?
Is that not what the Government is trying to do even though it
is a bit bitty, not focused and not joined up?
Dr Johnston: Yes, there does need
to be clarity around communication, but there are other places
where the clarity needs to exist, I suppose, and that is certainly
in the policy framework. As I say, the sustainable development
policy is a good start and the ideas within that need to find
their way into all government policy streams. The Government also
needs to be seen to be promoting the tools which enable people
to actually change their behaviour and to move on so that people
actually have the opportunity to do things differently.
Q134 Mr Thomas: What about the Government
changing its own behaviour?
Dr Johnston: It needs to show
a lead on that certainly. Government is potentially a place where
a lot of innovation can happen in terms of developing those tools
and then they can show the wider public how they should be used.
Q135 Mr Thomas: So would you say that
they are showing that lead now or does the Government need to
do more in its own procurement policy, its own behaviour and so
on, its own leadership, if you like, in practical terms not just
in information-giving terms?
Dr Johnston: I think we have probably
all seen the recent report on progress on the Greening Government
Initiative. I think it is fair to say that it is a mixed picture,
but in policy terms the Government is nearly there, so even if
it is not necessarily written down, it does state that it has
policies. Where the next steps need to be, in my view, are that
the resources need to be made available to actually begin that
change. As I said earlier, the tools and the innovation need to
be there so that people are actually able to do the sustainable
solution rather than find themselves trapped. Finally, the system
needs to reward and recognise those people who have been innovators
and changed behaviour. Currently, it does not really do the last
three.
Q136 Mr Challen: Turning to resources,
in general do you think there are adequate resources for ESD?
Dr Johnston: That obviously is
a very difficult question to answer. Again it probably goes right
back to the earlier questions from the Chairman, that if the Government
had a very clear idea of exactly what it was that it wanted to
achieve, so what does a sustainable development education sector
look like, you could then plan backwards and say, "Well,
okay, how much would it cost for us to change what we have got
to do this?" That would be the approach that I would advocate,
and I hope this Committee might ask the Government to give some
serious thought to, because, in the absence of that, you fund
the process without really knowing what outcome you might achieve
from it. So it is impossible for me to give a figure.
Q137 Mr Challen: I notice from the memo
from another organisation we are speaking to later that they thought
the resources were actually dwindling and did not seem very confident
that they would be replaced. In terms of the shift, do you see
an increase or a decrease, and I am also thinking in particular
about the Landfill Tax Credit and the impact that will have on
ESD.
Dr Johnston: I think in the post-16
and higher education sector we see a lot of potential for the
huge emphasis that is being put on the Government by leadership.
I think we can see that the amount of resource that is being put
into leadership within the education sector is also a resource
that would benefit sustainable development, so there is real potential
there, we feel, for that, as I understand it, extra resource which
the Government is putting into the education sector under the
leadership label, which is all about a better-managed education
sector, and I think we would probably all agree that a better-managed
education sector is one which is at least contributing to sustainable
development, so the two agenda are compatible.
Q138 Mr Challen: Is this approach being
welcomed generally because normally when we have leadership without
extra resources, people get rather sceptical and get demoralised,
thinking that perhaps this is not a real priority, just a rhetorical
priority? It does occasionally happen in the sphere of politics,
that this effect occurs.
Dr Johnston: Well, I think there
is a fair bit of resource going into leadership. We have several
new bodies, for example, HEFCE have a separate funding stream
on leadership governance and management which they see as being
compatible with the improvement of sustainable development within
the sector, and the Council for Excellence in Leadership is looking
at the integration of sustainability into leadership competences
of senior management and there is money there for courses, et
cetera, so there is good potential there. I think where the
difficulty is is resource on the ground and the transference of
leadership aspirations to actual difference within institutions
and that, for me, is where the resource gap exists and is the
widest. We are at the point now with DfES, but also with all parts
of government, where we are actually looking at implementation
and as of yet I am not aware of funding which has been made available
for a meaningful implementation.
Q139 Mr Challen: You do not see any new
options emerging for a secure source of funding for ESD?
Dr Johnston: I have not seen any.
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