Abstract
The UN Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (herein, Agenda 30) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer both a set of aspirations for the kind of future we would like to see for the world and a suite of targets and indicators to support goal implementation. Goal 4 promotes quality education and Target 4.7 specifically addresses Education for Sustainability. However, creating a monitoring and evaluation framework for Target 4.7 has been challenging. The aim of this research was to develop a meaningful assessment process. We used a dialogical intervention across complementary expertises and piloted concepts in a trainer workshop. We then developed a modified competency framework, drawing on previous competency models but innovating through the addition of intrapersonal competencies, a self-reflective validation scheme, a focus on non-formal learning, and specific alignment with SDG 4.7 requirements. Through exploration of how such learning could be activated, we proposed the use of multiple intelligences. Education plays a synergistic role in achieving the aspirations embedded within Agenda 2030 and the SDGs. We concluded that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) will require individuals to acquire ‘key competencies’, aligning with notions of transformational learning, in addition to other generic and context specific competencies.
Highlights
Sustainable development can be seen as a process, a means of envisaging and pursuing an aspiration of the future [1]
Whilst we began with the premise that competencies were effective for assessment of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) outcomes, we started our dialogue questioning the purposes of ESD
Whilst we recognise that fundamental competencies around communication and systems thinking are essential for ESD, we focus in this paper on developing a framework for competencies and examples of some of the specific skills required to address the five areas highlighted in the text of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4.7 [2]:
Summary
Sustainable development can be seen as a process, a means of envisaging and pursuing an aspiration of the future [1]. Whilst the SDGs represent a suite of collectively agreed intentions, there are tensions and contradictions within them and wider concerns regarding their framing [4]. Despite their flaws, they are the best outcome of the political discourse at this time and they offer us a framework to begin to create an ‘ecological civilisation’. Together with the SDGs, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers both a set of aspirations for the kind of future we would like to see and a suite of 17 targets and 169 indicators to support the implementation of these Goals. We propose a greater emphasis on intrapersonal competencies, and we argue for greater consideration of non-formal learning to achieve sustainable development within the context of the SDGs and beyond
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