Abstract
Due to the close affinity that Geography shares with the theoretical constructs and methodologies of Education for sustainable development (ESD), Geography is expected to play a major role in the implementation of ESD. However, for this to take place, Geography teachers ought to have a deep and clear understanding of both sustainable development and ESD and should have positive attitudes towards what these concepts entail. In Swaziland, information about understanding of what both sustainable development and ESD among Geography teachers and what their attitudes are towards these domains of today’s world debate is very little. This study is therefore an attempt to fill this gap of information. The study, which was a mixed methods design answered four research questions, had a sample of 92 senior secondary school Geography teachers from 40 systematically sampled schools in the four regions of Eswatini. A self-developed questionnaire which was validated by two experts at the University of Eswatini, with a reliability value of 0.72 was used. Results obtained were analysed using Qualitative content analysis (QCA) method and Statistical Package for Social Scientists Version 10 (SPSS_10) and Excel. The results indicated that Geography teachers lacked a deep and clear understanding of the theoretical constructs of both sustainable development and ESD. More so, very few teachers had any clear, supported understanding of what ESD is all about. Despite this lack of knowledge, teachers showed a high level of positive attitudes towards sustainable development and ESD. The study concluded that a majority of the geography teachers did not understand the concept of ESD and recommended that sustained in service training programmes be put in place urgently and teacher training institutions should fully incorporate ESD in education training programmes to empower trainee teachers who would be the implementers of ESD.
Highlights
The following were the findings of the study: Research question 1: What is the SGCSE Geography teachers understanding of education for sustainable development? Results indicated that the majority (66%) of the teachers revealed that they had no idea about Education for sustainable development (ESD) or a sound understanding of what ESD means
There was another 15% who had average understanding of ESD. These teachers expressed at least two areas of sustainability which are a concern for ESD. Those who are described as having little understanding demonstrated at least one idea in the right direction such as ‘ESD is concerned with teaching students about the environmental awareness’
The majority of the Swaziland senior secondary school Geography teachers teaching the SGCSE programme who participated in the study have poor understanding of ESD
Summary
To live sustainably has been the main challenge that humanity faces today. This has generated restlessness and concern for the future generations and has propelled scientists, scholars and politicians all over the world to call for the inclusion of topics such as the environment and education in the agendas of international discussions undertaken to protect the environment and address the economic and social developmental challenges brought about as a result of the unrestrained exploitation of the earth’s ecosystem on which humanity depends for its survival. The UN sums up the sustainability challenges that we face today.
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