Teachers’ Commitment to Promoting Education for Sustainable Development: Outcomes of a Faculty Collaborative Action Research Project

Abstract

The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Working Group (consisting of teacher educators within the School of Education at The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Jamaica), conducted a collaborative action research project to infuse ESD skills, issues, perspectives, and values into six courses. The study explored students’ views on the role of teachers in promoting ESD, their personal commitment to ESD, and whether these views were influenced by the infusion process. The study involved 140 undergraduate and graduate students, comprising both pre-service and in-service teachers, and an instrument was developed to gather pre- and post-course responses to open-ended prompts. The results showed development in students’ awareness about their roles and personal commitment to ESD after the infusion process. The findings indicate that teacher education programmes have the potential to promote sustainable development and empower teachers as change agents.