Teachers’ Competencies for the Implementation of Educational Offers in the Field of Education for Sustainable Development

Christine Künzli,Meret Lehmann,Franziska Bertschy

doi:10.3390/su5125067

Abstract

The term of education is an integral part of any programmatic political document on sustainable development. This fact underlines the significance that is assigned to education in the context of sustainable development. It leads to the question of what competencies teachers need in order to develop and implement educational offers in the field of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) so that they can aspire to and attain specific educational goals with their students. This touches on the question of the building of corresponding competencies in teacher education and further education. So far, few attempts have been made to describe teachers’ competencies regarding ESD and to develop corresponding competence models. The following article presents two models—Curriculum, Sustainable Development, Competences, Teacher Training (CSCT Model) and Learning for the future: The Competences in Education for Sustainable Development (ECE Model)—and discusses their benefit for teacher education and further education. These models differ in how broadly they define ESD and in what audiences they target at. This comparison shows and explains why competence models should focus on profession-specific core competencies if they are to be used as a basis for the conception of educational offers in the field of ESD in education and further education of teachers. The drawn conclusion consists in initial considerations for the conception of another competence model.

Highlights

Education and, school as an institution play a leading role in the implementation of sustainable development
Model offers comprehensively defined competencies, there remains a considerable need for clarification when it comes to the core competencies for planning and implementing concrete educational offers in the context of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) taught by an individual teacher
The following shall offer a summarizing discussion about the meaning of the two competence models for teacher education in the field of ESD, that is in what way they could be a basis for the conception and implementation of entire degree courses or single courses: The two competence models CSCT [12]

Summary

Introduction

School as an institution play a leading role in the implementation of sustainable development. Rather than a subject on its own, ESD is usually considered an interdisciplinary matter that is brought to schools‘ attention This educational objective claims to foster children and adolescents‘ ability to take part in establishing sustainable development [3,4,5,6]). These two models—the Curriculum, Sustainable Development, Competences, Teacher Training (CSCT) model [12] as well as the Learning for the future: The Competences in Education for Sustainable Development (ECE) model [13]—are currently the only elaborate models to describe ESD specific competencies of teachers [14] Both models claim for themselves to have answered the question of teachers‘ competencies for implementing ESD. The following article shall critically examine these competence models regarding their respective benefits in this matter

The CSCT Competence Model

The ECE Competence Model

Discussion and Implications

Conclusions

24. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization