What processes, if any, do you have in place to develop ESD in the curriculum?

Table 4.9 - Processes to Develop ESD in the Curriculum

College Processes

College 1 I am only responsible for ESD in one college department and I am

currently working to better our sustainability, but I feel we don’t get enough support when asked, not from our department but others.

College 2 We have developed curriculum specific materials for ESD and

continue to do so and our Sustainable Development Adviser (SDA) has worked on staff development. ESD is central to our Carbon Management Plan and we have an Energy Focus Group with a Sustainability Group which is currently being put in place. The SDA also works closely with the Student Association to assist them in the National Union of Students pilot programme Responsible Futures.

College 3 We have a Sustainability Group, as well as students inputting into

the evaluation of the delivery of wider skills such as sustainability awareness.

College 4 This is monitored through our annual Skills Framework completed

in a course by course basis. We have had a number of initiatives on sustainability in the college such as staff development days and raising student awareness.

College 5 Skipped.

College 6 Adherence to and implementation of the contents of Carbon

Management Plan.

College 7 No clear focus.

Not a lot of information was gained from this question. Again Colleges 5 and 8 chose to skip it. This response is in keeping with the information previously provided in their earlier responses, since a number of questions were skipped, and them advising ESD had no priority (College 5) and was low priority (College 8). College 7 gave ESD medium priority but acknowledged it was not very widespread and only embedded in a few departments, which correlates with them advising there is no clear focus in place to

develop ESD in the curriculum. The remaining colleges provided information that may be able to be checked against the processes they have in place within the college in relation to sustainability documentation and guidance the guidance they have produced themselves. Any such in-house sustainability documentation that exists within individual colleges will be examined later in this chapter. In terms of the response received from College 6, that ESD will be developed in the curriculum by ‘adherence to and implementation of the contents of their Carbon Management Plan (CMP)’, it will be interesting to observe if their CMP makes reference to the curriculum or not, because in my experience not many

Scottish college CMPs do and in the light of the present analysis this is a glaring omission.

‘Higher education is an important site for the development of skills and knowledge to inform graduates’ future professional practice’ (Holdsworth & Thomas, 2015, p1). However, in order to develop these skills and knowledge the educational institution must first have developed the approaches to do so. Moreover ‘this requires educators to recognise that, if the take up of learning and teaching is to develop the required graduate capabilities, educators need to recognise that curriculum and learning and teaching methods are a subset of their pedagogy’ (Holdsworth & Thomas, 2015, p5). Over twenty years ago Robottom and Hart (1993) stated that ‘a lack of reflection on one’s practice will fail to transform practice into praxis, reinforcing the current reductionist, individual approach to education seen today’ (Robottom & Hart 1993, cited in Holdsworth & Thomas, 2015, p5). In the context of ESD, it is especially crucial that colleges as

‘educators’ are provided with the opportunities to reflect critically upon current practice to enable future curriculum development. Furthermore, this must also translate meaningfully to lecturers’ pedagogy in relation to learning for sustainability, because pedagogy is the educator’s vision of education and society (Fien & Tilbury, 2002). Pedagogy shapes educational practice and ‘the development of a theory of practice leading to quality education challenges the educator to consider it as more than the development and design of learning activities’ (Holdsworth & Thomas, 2015, p7). Critical reflective practice which interrogates pedagogy is of course vital to effective learning and teaching. However, as this chapter has demonstrated the tendency towards the individualisation of responsibility

which often comes with the doctrines of reflective practice cannot be used to exonerate institutions and their leaders from responsibility for the inadequacies in current

institutional leadership and strategic planning. These are corporate obligations and need to be foregrounded in the core identity, mission and reputation of the colleges themselves.

The need for educators to reflect on learning for sustainability pedagogy along with the need to reorient the curriculum to include sustainability are added pressures that will also, ‘no doubt impact upon staff choosing to bid for funding, undertake and submit for review ESD-related research projects’ (Bessant et al., 2015, p424). This puts an academic price on ESD ‘which ultimately brings into question what value and esteem ESD research is currently afforded in our research system’ (Bessant et al., 2015, p424)? Although research is crucial to ‘understand the successes and challenges of the role of educating for a

sustainable future, and to drive sustainability activity in institutions’ (Bessant et al., 2015, p426), the progression of learning for sustainability should not be delayed by waiting for research. If further research is required before ESD can progress, then the Scottish college sector may have even more work to do than this survey suggests.

Genuine progression may be achieved by successfully implementing the overall goal of the United Nations Global Action Plan (GAP) which is ‘to generate and scale-up action in all levels and areas of education and learning in order to accelerate progress towards

sustainable development’ (UNESCO, 2013, p1). The objectives of the GAP are:

 Reorienting education and learning so that everyone has the opportunity to acquire the values, skills, and knowledge that empower them to contribute to sustainable development.

 To strengthen education and learning in all agendas, programs, and activities that promote sustainable development (UNESCO, 2013, p1).

The GAP has five priority action areas which ‘are considered key leverage points to advance the ESD agenda which are:

(a) Policy support,

(b) Whole institutional approaches, (c) Educators,

(d) Youth, and

Achieving the objectives of the GAP in these five priority areas would aid effective curriculum development for learning for sustainability indeed, they could prove vital to radical systems change if they were mobilised on behalf of strategic planning.

7. What at do you know about the United Nations Decade of Education for