APPENDIX 32
Memorandum from MMU
ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT
SUB-COMMITTEE
Although we made a response to "Learning
the Sustainability Lesson" I have only just become aware
of the request for views on progress in ESD from the Sub-committee
of the Environmental Audit Committee. Although it is after the
deadline for submissions I am sending a response in the hope that
it may be looked at.
1. Has the term Education for Sustainable
Development lost its currency? Does it have any resonance with
the general public? Has the environmental message within it been
lost?
Our observation at the Institute of Education
(IoE) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) is that the
term Education for Sustainable Development has always lacked currency.
This is in part because DfES deployed the term most prominently
in the Citizenship guidelines giving it status only as a subset
of the Citizenship Agenda. There is also little doubt that the
term sustainable is most frequently used in discussions of social,
political and economic issues than it is of issues that relate
to the ecological or natural. The term environmental is quite
clearly being used in the context of this question to mean natural,
whereas for many environmental involves the same synthesis of
the social, political, economic and natural domains as that which
characterises sustainability.
What dismays us is the possibility that some
may reach the conclusion that we need another name to replace
ESD. What is critical in this debate is to get beyond names to
concepts. ESD should be critical, cognitive, affective and active,
it should be based on a whole school philosophy where educational
institutions practise what they teach by encouraging and promoting
sustainable actions in schools, FE, HE and their local communities.
ESD should be a process that emphasises education as agency, active
citizenship and participation. This advocacy of whole school approaches
is a positive feature of the DfES Action Plan although the plan
is based on a rather incomplete model of whole school approaches
that neglects the social organisation of active learning. In essence
does it matter if people who share this synthetic, whole schools
conception use different terms to describe it such as environmental
education, of sustainability education? The advent of the UN Decade
of ESD is another opportunity to reinforce the conceptual message
about ESD and of itself a strong reason for not seeking new terminology.
2. The DfES said in 2003 that the Sustainable
Development Action Plan was supposed to signal the start of a
process of change, identifying the most powerful levers—what
can be achieved immediately and what can be built upon. More than
a year on can it be said that process of change has begun and
have there been any immediate achievements?
From our perspective the most significant achievement
has been the development of an environmental module for the Certificate
in School Business Management (CSBM) by NCSL. This module was
developed by a consortium led by IoE MMU consisting of CREATE,
Groundwork and the Learning Through Landscapes Trust. The module
has been written, piloted and evaluated formatively and been very
positively received by NCSL tutors and school business managers
(SBMs). We understand that an evaluation of this module has been
forwarded by NCSL to DfES. The module was developed from a European
Commission funded project called SEEPS (directed by MMU) which
advocates a whole school development approach to ESD. The SEEPS
Project provides schools with the resources and activities to
promote whole school development approaches to ESD through a school-focused
model of professional development. The latest version of the SEEPS
Project was launched at a conference at MMU in February this year.
A TTA recommended website to support ESD in initial teacher education,
which has also been developed as part of the SEEPS Project, has
seen a significant in development this year using COMENIUS funding
url:www.education.ed.ac.uk/esf
3. Government is currently reviewing the
UK Sustainable Development Strategy. What should the Strategy
include, in order to significantly strengthen the role of learning
within it?
If ESD is to have any coherence in schools,
initial teacher education and continuing professional development
it needs some unifying principles. A conceptual model of ESD was
outlined in answer to question 1. This model needs to be associated
with the advocacy of whole institution approaches and organisational
development. A strategy supported at a workshop on Teacher Education
for ESD in the Decade of ESD at the recent UCET conference. Linking
ESD with NCSL's educational leadership and management agenda in
combination with initiatives in ESD in ITT is the most promising
way of promoting ESD rapidly in schools. However there are two
difficulties with realising this strategy.
The first is a lack of reference to ESD in TTA
standards for NQTs (unlike in Scotland). The second is that whole
school approaches and ESD are currently only addressed in the
NCSL's CSBM course. As SBMs recognised themselves in the evaluation
of the environmental module, the whole school message will be
easier to disseminate and adopt if similar modules exist in NPQH
and Leading from the Middle. IoE has developed an elective for
ITT trainees in ESD and a ESD is a component of most ITT courses
in the IoE.
4. Does the 14-19 Working Group's report,
"14-19 Curriculum and Qualifications Reform", go far
enough? Will ESD be adequately represented if this report is used
as the basis for the forthcoming White Paper? What must be included
in the White Paper if progress is to be made to fully integrate
ESD into all aspects of learning, formal and informal?
The short answer is no because ESD action focused
education goes beyond knowledge, understanding and awareness.
The environmental awareness model that suggests that if people
are aware of a problem they will act for its resolution is discredited.
Any recipe that deals only with qualifications and curriculum
will never be enough because of its difficulty in addressing communal
action. Some involvement in community based action such as that
required in the International Baccalaureate would be the best
that one could expect. The relative failure of the Managing Environmental
Resources initiative in Higher Still shows all the limitations
of solutions limited to curriculum and qualifications. This is
not to say that knowledge and understanding are not important,
but it is to say that these are insufficient to realise the lifestyle
changes to sustainable living that UNESCO descriptions of ESD
require.
5. In response to our last inquiry the DfES
said they recognised that more could be done to embed ESD in the
school curriculum and that they would lead on strengthening ESD
links within geography, design and technology, science and citizenship.
Has there been any discernible improvement in these areas? Is
there evidence that this work has been taken forward by the DfES
and its agencies?
The development of the QCA website for ESD has
been a positive step but how far has progress been adversely affected
by the declaration that geography, arguably the flagship subject
for ESD is now considered to be the worst taught subject in schools?
6. The role of informal learning, including
youth work, work based learning and adult and community learning,
in taking the environmental education agenda forward is key. Is
the Government doing enough in these crucial areas?
It is interesting that the term environmental
education rather than ESD is used in this question and the next.
This is not our area of expertise but we would see synergy between
the solutions proffered above and this sector of education.
7. Is there any evidence to suggest that
the Government, through its stewardship of education, is getting
better at getting the environmental message across to the general
public? And is there any evidence to suggest that sufficient work
is being done at regional and local levels to support environmental
education?
One of the best ways to promote ESD would be
to promote Centres for Alternative Technology across the country.
We never think that sufficient will or can be done by government
because the SD agenda is heavily dependent on individual and community
agency. However while developments in transport are disappointing
much good work is going on in the building industry and school
building in particular, the latter linked to the urban education
agenda.
8. Are there sufficient resources available
to deliver the government's commitment to education for sustainable
development?
No. The lack of resources for Agenda 21, perhaps
the best vehicle for ESD, while other community initiatives and
partnerships have secured government funding is one significant
reason for Agenda 21's lack of success.
November 2004
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