Abstract
Education is considered the primary driver of sustainable development. Teachers play a critical role in the conjunction of ideal, designed, and actual teaching and learning experience delivery. Successful education plays a crucial role in accomplishing the UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs). Therefore, this research focused on the better preparation of teachers to deliver high-quality education for achieving SDGs in Qatar. To this end, this study investigated teachers’ development needs, including their professional preparation, empowerment, and assessment, by employing semi-structured interviews in selected schools. In summary, the findings show a lack of professional development (PD) opportunities, and the current PD approaches have no direction, purpose, or progress. The results also demonstrate that objective and customized assessment methods, a clear and robust career roadmap, and career promotions accordingly would increase teachers’ motivation for their, and thus students’, development. In addition, only a few teachers are aware of the SDGs and their connections with education. Therefore, there is a need to raise their level of understanding and motivation by preparing them with the right set of skills and tools and paying attention to the teachers’ development as a whole at school, society, and policy levels.
Highlights
Sustainable development has been a global paradigm demanding radical changes in economic, social, and environmental development trajectories across national and international institutions since the onset of the undesired effects and irreversible calamities of the industrialization era during the 20th century
We focused on teachers in a holistic educational system and drew a teachers’ professional development diagram by utilizing system thinking
This research identified that teachers in the Qatar Education System (QES) lack professional development, and this deficiency creates under-qualified teachers and an underperforming education system, eventually retarding sustainable development
Summary
Sustainable development has been a global paradigm demanding radical changes in economic, social, and environmental development trajectories across national and international institutions since the onset of the undesired effects and irreversible calamities of the industrialization era during the 20th century. Education systems are comprised of visions, strategies, institutions, policies, and written and unwritten conventions and have a broad range of stakeholders, including students, teachers, parents, decision makers, businesses, and industry circles [4]. Education systems and their outcomes vary from country to country depending on history, tradition, culture, geography, national visions, economic and demographic structure, governance, Sustainability 2021, 13, 11525. The recent underachievement levels of students in international and national assessments show that Qatar has a problem in the education system and and national assessments show that Qatar has a problem in the education system and teachers’ motivation, skills, or abilities. Of teachers’ development experiences, along with problems and future desires
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