Abstract
This paper discusses the current status of all aspects of education for sustainable development (ESD) across the United Kingdom (UK), drawing on evidence from its political jurisdictions (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), and setting out some characteristics of best practice. The paper analyzes current barriers to progress, and outlines future opportunities for enhancing the core role of education and learning in the pursuit of a more sustainable future. Although effective ESD exists at all levels, and in most learning contexts across the UK, with good teaching and enhanced learner outcomes, the authors argue that a wider adoption of ESD would result from the development of a strategic framework which puts it at the core of the education policy agenda in every jurisdiction. This would provide much needed coherence, direction and impetus to existing initiatives, scale up and build on existing good practice, and prevent unnecessary duplication of effort and resources. The absence of an overarching UK strategy for sustainable development that sets out a clear vision about the contribution learning can make to its goals is a major barrier to progress. This strategy needs to be coupled with the establishment of a pan-UK forum for overseeing the promotion, implementation and evaluation of ESD.
Highlights
The idea that education should focus on the links between the quality of the environment and human socio-economic development is well established
It follows from this settlement that different education, and education for sustainable development (ESD) and sustainable development, policies exist in the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom (UK)
It has the support of the Scottish Government and will maintain momentum as we approach the end of UNDESD, providing new opportunities for collaborative working between practitioners, academics, government and civil society
Summary
The idea that education should focus on the links between the quality of the environment and human socio-economic development is well established. The UN’s millennium development goals, agreed in 2000, have since become seen as core ESD concerns, and the Johannesburg World Summit in 2002 stimulated the UN Decade for ESD (UNDESD 2005–2014), which is nearing its end At this point, it is important to note that, in the late 1990s, the UK government began to devolve responsibility for education and other policy areas to the political jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales (see section). The paper sets out to provide an analysis of progress in support of the UK government’s objective for sharing best practice in all learning contexts This breadth of view has assumed a much more important policy priority given the UK coalition government’s current focus on stimulating economic growth by creating a substantial green economy linked to climate change adaptation UK [23,24,25], and the Scottish Government’s [26] separate and somewhat more extensive commitments. Our case studies of the four different part of the UK illustrate how these tensions play out in relation to current education policy and the support of other learning activity
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