How has Education for
Sustainable Development developed and how does
it appear in the National Curriculum?
Frances
Nichols
Introduction
The growth of global
interdependence is evident in the expansion of
technological, political, cultural, economic, and
ecological global networks, and there is no reason
to believe that this growth will slow down or end
soon (Tye 1990). The current and continuously
developing state of the world demands an
exploration of various scenarios that may occur
from the current trend, and a consideration of the
implications of these (Hicks 2002). Education has
a crucial role to play in enabling society to
respond to the process of globalisation (Osler and
Starkey 2005), and the various implications
globalisation has on environmental, social,
cultural and economic issues.
Education, traditionally
practiced, can be seen to reflect the inequalities
apparent in a capitalist society; designed to
produce people ready for the industrial market it
functions to fit young people into the existing
economy (Hicks and Holden 1995) and can be seen to
play a part in reproducing an unsustainable
society (Huckle and Sterling 1996). Education
prepares young people for the future, promoting
awareness and understanding of their society, how
it functions, and how they’ll come to contribute
to it in certain ways (Osler and Starkey 2005).
However, teaching about the future does not
prepare students for a future that will look very
different to the present; with the growing
agreement about the seriousness of various global
issues, teaching must encourage an exploration of
possible changes that will occur, and what action
people will need to take for a more equal and
sustainable future (Hicks and Holden 1995).
Internationally, there have
been increasing global concerns becoming more and
more prominent in the media, policy and
non-government initiatives. Society’s awareness of
these particular global issues is largely
dependent on the coverage in the media (Hicks and
Townley 1982); one issue that is consistently
focused on is that of the environment and
sustainability; climate change has been identified
as the greatest threat facing humankind (Hicks and
Holden 2007). Although it’s not the only issue
brought about by the increasing interdependence of
the global economy, the environment and issues of
sustainability are prominent in political and
public discussions, and the need for change has
had various implications for formal and informal
education. Numerous world conferences have
addressed issues of environment and development,
and a number of international agencies have been
established to tackle these particular issues
(Huckle and Sterling 1996).
The government, and
non-government organisations, that are concerned
with global issues and sustainability consider
education to be the main resource available to
promote a transition towards sustainable
development (Huckle & Sterling 1996). This
essay will describe the political developments
around the environment and sustainability, and
subsequent political agendas and establishment of
non-government organisations (NGO’s). There will
then be a consideration of the progression of
sustainable development in education with
reference to the political agendas, and their
influence on the current education policy and the
implementation of it.
Political developments
NGO’s concerned with global
affairs, economic, social and environmental issues
can seem relatively limited in person power,
financial capacity and social influence, but many
have been very effective in targeting their
resources to achieve significant change in systems
that do have power (Huckle and Sterling 1996). One
of the first NGOs that focused primarily on
environmental issues was the Club of Rome. In 1968
a small group of professionals from various fields
met to discuss the risks of unlimited resource
consumption in an interdependent world and the
issues of short- term thinking (Club of Rome
2009). In its first report ‘The Limits to growth’
various scenarios were explored and the choices
available to society to ‘reconcile sustainable
progress within environmental constraints’ (Club
of Rome 2009).
NGO’s fill a variety of roles
from basic research to the collection and
distribution of information, to inducing
collective action in many forms. They take
influence where market and state institutions
appear unable to provide solutions to societal
problems (Hatzius 1996). Despite NGOs having a
considerable skill in dealing with national and
international issues it is with the governments
that the power of change ultimately resides.
In 1972 the United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment considered:
“...the
need
for a common outlook and for common principles to
inspire and guide the peoples of the world in the
preservation and enhancement of the human
environment...”
(UNEP, Date Unknown b: online)
The declarations from which
were the basis for 26 principles, and lead to the
establishment of the United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP) (UNEP, date unknown b). Existing
today and working with Clean up the World (CUW),
UNEP ‘encourages sustainable development through
sound environmental practices’ (CUW, date unknown:
online).
During the 1980s UNEP joined
with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to commission
the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) which was
prepared by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
(IUCN), the aim of which was outlined as being ‘to
help advance the achievement of sustainable
development through the conservation of living
resources’ (IUCN 1980) and
hoped to focus the approach to human resource
conservation, and guide policy makers as to the
most effective way of achieving certain aims
(Huckle and Sterling 1996). Also, there was the
commissioning of the Brandt Report, a broad based
analysis of the state of the world, with
particular emphasis on the worlds economic
development and its failings in ensuring social
and economic equality for humanity (STWR, date
unknown).
The UN
Commission on Environment and Development (UNCED)
in 1983 echoed concerns about the increasing
deterioration of the environment and natural
resources, and the implications of that
deterioration on economic and social development.
It was reported that sustainable development
should be the guiding factor of the UN,
governments, institutions and organisations and
that it was of major importance that there should
be a reorientation of national and international
policies towards sustainable development (DESA
1999) reflected in its resolution 38/161.
The Brundtland commission for
sustainable development followed in 1987 and
defined sustainable development as ‘development
that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations’
(Venkataraman 2009: 1). Also
known as ‘Our Common Future’ the report raised
awareness of the increasing importance of making
progress in economic development whilst ensuring
the conservation of the worlds natural resources
and the environment (Atmosphere, Climate and
Environment Information Programme 2002).
The challenge of sustainable
development was introduced on a more global
political agenda at the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992.
Also called the Earth Summit, the conference in
Rio de Janeiro convened to examine the issues
raised by the Brundtland commission (Holmberg et
al 1991, cited in Huckle and Sterling 1996). The
Earth Summit concluded that nothing less than a
transformation in our values and behaviours would
bring about the necessary changes to ensure a
sustainable future for generations to come (UN
1997) and called for an embrace of our common
rights and duties to the earth’s natural resources
(Huckle and Sterling 1996). It lead to the
adoption of Agenda 21, a blueprint for action to
achieve sustainability worldwide, and a focus on
the crucial role of education in promoting a more
sustainable form of global development in all
countries (Hicks and Holden 1995).
Agenda
21,
the
Rio
Declaration
on Environment and Development, is a plan of
action that has been adopted globally,
nationally and locally by organisations and
governments of the United Nations.The
Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was
created at the end of 1992 to ‘ensure effective
follow up of UNCED’ and to report on the
implementation at a local, national, regional
and international level (DESA Date unknown). The
UK strategy of Agenda 21 was published in 1994
and proposed an independent panel of experts to
advise on policy and to coordinate local
government, business and other interests, and a
citizens’ environment initiative (Huckle and
Sterling 1996). It was agreed by the Earth
Summit conference that the best starting point
towards sustainable development was at the local
level (LA21 Date unknown). LA21 is the local
version of Agenda 21, which calls councils to
prepare their own agenda based on the action and
concerns of the community with the hope that
with participation at a local level a positive
change will be made to improve quality of life
at a national and global level (LA21 date
unknown). Sustainable development has to be at
the centre of the strategies developed and
implemented by all areas of society (LA21 Date
unknown) and has the potential to educate and
empower people as agents of sustainable
development (Huckle and Sterling 1996).
Despite this being a
significant move to promoting sustainable
development internationally, nationally and
locally, many thought that the issues that
prompted the summit in the first place were not
being dealt with by the government; neither the
issues themselves nor the manifestations of them
in the UK (Jacobs 1998). In response to this
argument 30 independently constituted UK NGOs
joined in a coalition in 1996 called the ‘Real
World Coalition’. The aim of which was to
highlight the link of the organisations concerned
with varying issues such as environmental
sustainability, eradication of poverty and social
justice, and the fact that it was no longer enough
to tackle one issue in isolation from the wider
global context (Jacobs 1998).
Despite criticisms, the agendas
from the 1992 Earth Summit were further endorsed
by the Earth Summit in 2002, continuing to focus
on education as essential to integrate environment
and development issues into society; out of this
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
emerged (Hicks and Holden 2007).
From the 2002 Earth Summit the
United Nations adopted resolution 57/245 and
declared the period 2005 to 2014 as the decade of
ESD (Little and Green 2009). UNESCO was requested
to take leadership over the decade of ESD (DESD),
and develop an implementation plan for it. The
implementation plan document analyses the evolving
nature of sustainable development; there are three
core dimensions: environment, economy and society
(King 2008). It aims to promote education as a
basis for a more sustainable society, and to
integrate sustainable development into education
at all levels and all areas of life (Sterling and
Scott 2008); furthermore, it offers a focal point
on a global scale, providing hope that
environmental ideas will be effectively integrated
with other education disciplines ensuring positive
implications (Los 2008).
In 1999 the sustainable
strategy for the UK, ‘One Future Different Paths’
published ‘Quality of Life Counts’ which included
indicators for a strategy of sustainable
development, and provided a base line from which
assessments of progress might be measured (Quality
of Life Counts 2004). An account of the
developments of this strategy is taken in the 2005
UK strategy ‘Securing the Future’. The domestic
and international developments, as well as the
changes in the structure of the UK government, the
delivery of sustainable development education at a
regional level, and also the new relationship
between government and local education authorities
are discussed in the publication in terms of a
further framework of national common goals (DEFRA
2005).
In 2006 Lord Stern, Head of the Government
Economic Service and former World Bank Chief
Economist, led a report into the assessment of
the nature of the economic challenges of climate
change and how they can be met nationally and
globally (OCC 2007). The report assessed a wide
range of evidence of the impacts of climate
change on the economy, and considered the costs
and risks from different perspectives. The
conclusions drawn from the evidence were
centered around the benefits of strong and early
action outweighing the economic costs of not
acting, and that climate change is a serious
global issue and requires urgent global action
(HM Treasury 2006).
The conclusions are reflected
in the GEO4 Global Environmental Outlook Report
(UNEP 2007), that also states that protecting the
global environment is beyond the capacity of
individual countries, and that only coordinated
international efforts will be sufficient to deal
with climate change and issues of environmental
sustainability (UNEP 2007). The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) was
initiated at the request of UNEP to keep the
global environment under review; reports,
analysis of environmental change, causes,
impacts, and policy responses provide
information for decision-making and raise
awareness on environmental issues, also
providing options for action (UNEP Date Unknown
a). GEO 4 is the fourth report to have been
published since the initiation in 1995.
The fourth assessment report
(AR4) on climate change from the Intergovernmental
Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) was also published
in 2007 (IPCC 2007). The IPCC was set up by the
World Meteorological Organisation and UNEP to
provide an authoritative international statement
of scientific understanding of climate change
(Parry et al 2007). It describes the progress in
human and natural influences on climate change,
observed climate change, climate processes, and
estimates of projected future climate change
(Parry et al 2007).
It is clear through these
developments that the increasingly urgent need for
global action to combat the effects of climate
change and human activity on the natural
environment is being taken more and more seriously
by the international community, governments, NGO’s
and local authorities. However, Sterling
and Scott (2008) argue that support for ESD by
central government is more passive than active,
and that its not being driven coherently or
energetically enough, though there are various
initiatives being implemented and enforced by the
government at all levels of society. The next
section will consider those developed, and being
implemented in and through the education system,
and how far they are seen to represent hope for
change towards sustainability.
Educational Developments
In 2002 the United Nations
declared that 2005-2014 would be the ‘Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development’; with the
aim to:
“...integrate
the values inherent in sustainable development
into all aspects of learning to encourage
changes in behaviour that allow for a more
sustainable and just society for all.”
(UNESCO
2005: Online)
Early interests in global
matters started emerging in the 1920’s through the
establishment of the World Education Fellowship
and its journal ‘The New Era’, and also the
Council for Education in World Citizenship set up
by educators in the late 1930’s (Heater 1980,
cited in Hicks and Holden 2007).
The One World Trust was
established in 1951 by a group of
Parliamentarians, and soon after its establishment
became a separate charity to promote research and
to educate the public on global developments and
policy (One World Trust 2008). Along with the
All-Party Parliamentary Group on World Government
(PGWG) in 1959 the One World Trust formed an
Education Advisory Committee to work on the
objective of including a dual focus in education-
national as well as global (One World Trust 2008).
From the 1960’s onwards a
growing number of new educational movements
emerged internationally. Various issue based
perspectives all developed in different areas of
expertise came under headings such as Global
Education, Environmental Education, Development
Education, Peace Education and Futures Education
(Hicks and Holden 2007).
In 1973 the One World Trust set
up the ‘World Studies Project’ to look at issues
of world order; it was funded by the Department
for Education and Science, the Leverhulme Trust,
and the Ministry of Overseas Development (Fisher
and Hicks 1985). Robin Richardson directed the
running of conferences attended mainly by
secondary school teachers, teachers in teacher
training, and members of NGO’s; and it was hugely
influential in forming the basis for a global
element in education (Hicks and Holden 2007).
Richardson provided the first conceptual map of
world society including issues such as poverty,
oppression, conflict and environment.
The schools council and the
Rowntree project legitimised the field of global
education further with World Studies 8-13 (Fisher
and Hicks 1985). The World studies 8-13 project
worked with pupils in the middle years of
schooling and involved in-service work with 50
LEAs (Hicks 2003). The project, which defined
World Studies as promoting the ‘knowledge,
attitudes and skills which are needed for living
responsibly in a multi-cultural society and an
interdependent world’ was based on Richardson’s
work and was based around 5 themes: ourselves and
others, rich and poor, peace and conflict, our
environment, and the world tomorrow (Hicks 2003).
Education
for
sustainable development was first outlined in
chapter 36 of agenda 21 of the 1992 Earth Summit,
and from environmental and developmental education
ideas it as developed since (ESD: Date unknown).
The discussion around how schools would actively
promote the knowledge and skills to become ‘active
citizens’ was focused on in the 1998 Sustainable
Development Education Panel (SDEP), whose work was
recognised in the 2000 revision of the national
curriculum (ESD: Date unknown). Learning to Last,
the governments long term aim for ESD was outlined
by SDEP in 2003 and covered all areas of education
in terms of objectives to ensure the professional
capacity and adequate resources to allow skills
and aptitudes to be developed for all citizens to
engage in the achievement of sustainability (ESD
Date unknown).
Using
the objectives outlined, the Office for Standards
in Education (OFSTED) published ‘Taking the First
Step Forward: Towards an Education for Sustainable
Development’; which summarised findings from
inspections of a number of schools, focusing on
ESD, and highlighted examples of good practice
found in their reports in 2002-2003 (ESD Date
unknown).
The
Sustainable Development Commission, the
government’s independent advisory body on
sustainable development, published the extension
of Every Child Matters, Every Child’s Future
Matters, in 2007. It discusses the national and
international research on children’s wellbeing and
the environment as well as how sustainability can
enhance the existing Every Child Matters
initiative and highlights the specific areas for
action as well as proposals for government, local
authorities and other partners involved in
children’s services (Sustainable Development
Commission: Date unknown).
These
developments link in to those outlined as
political developments, but can be seen to be very
much reflecting the international agendas with
regards to the environment and education. There
have been many other perspectives towards a global
element in education, such as ‘A Futures
Perspective’, exploring temporal dimensions of how
global issues are effecting, and are effected by,
the past, present and future, encouraging children
to think more creatively and critically about the
future (Hicks 2003); and ‘Development Education’
supporting teachers and other educators who wish
to explore the nature of global issues (Hicks and
Holden 2007).
Development
education
was a notion developed on from the 60’s, which
progressed through environmental conservation in
the 60s and 70s,to national and global issues on
the 70’s to 80’s, to issues of sustainability in
the 90s and today (Hicks and Holden 2007). By
considering how this focus is reflected in the
current national curriculum it is possible to see
whether these developments have had an effect on
the practice and instruction in schools, and to
what extent.
Education for Sustainable Development
Education for Sustainable
development aims to redirect education so that it
presents sustainable development as a means to
modify individual and societal lifestyles towards
protecting the environment and achieving social
equity (Venkatamaran 2009). It is an approach to
learning which aims to build global citizenship
through the consideration of five global concepts:
interdependence, images and perceptions, social
justice, conflict and conflict resolution, change
and the future (Fountain 1995).
The characteristics and
interrelated primary requirements of ESD are that
it has to be delivered so that it is: contextual,
innovative and constructive, focused and infusive,
holistic, integrative, process oriented and
empowering, critical, balanced, systematic and
connective, ethical, purposive, inclusive and
lifelong (Huckle and Sterling 1996). It aims to
prepare individuals, groups, communities and
governments to live and act sustainably, and to
give them an understanding of the social, economic
and environmental issues involved (Hicks and
Holden 2007). To this end it calls for a change in
education with the purpose of ensuring a
sustainable future; four of the thrusts of ESD,
therefore are: improving access to quality
education, reorienting existing education
programs, developing public understanding and
awareness, and providing training (Little and
Green 2008).
Critique
Despite these outlines in the
national curriculum there are many who consider
ESD as being only passively supported by local
governments, and as not being driven with the
clarity nor energy needed for the promotion and
maintenance of any real change (Sterling and Scot
2008).
Cutting and Cook (2009)
consider the reports on the progress of ESD to be
at risk of becoming uncritical success stories
that are neither reviewed nor evaluated, obscuring
the failure to provide genuine insights or
solutions to environmental problems. This could be
seen to be an issue of effective assessment.
Venkataraman (2009) suggests that the lack of
consistent assessment of environmental education
practices and programmes inhibit effective
collaboration between educational researchers to
gather authentic assessments to inform curricular
reform and define the best practices. Furthermore,
with the completion of the OFSTED report of ESD
came questions about whether ESD can be
effectively assessed (Hicks and Holden 2007); in a
critique of the current national curriculum in
terms of its outlines for ESD, Chatzifotiou (2009)
comments that there are a lack of attainment
targets for ESD, and perhaps this can be put down
to the difficulty in defining how much behaviour
has been effected.
It is a change in behaviour
that ESD aims to promote and it is widely accepted
that education is vital to a transition to
sustainable lifestyles and practices (Venkatamaran
2009), however, it also seems widely accepted that
in order to achieve this aim, and fulfil its
potential as an agent of change towards a more
sustainable society, education needs to be a
subject of change itself (Huckle and Sterling
1996, Los 2008, Venkataraman 2009, Hicks and
Holden 1995) instead of ESD being added to ‘an
already crowded curriculum’ (Venkataraman 2009).
Chatzifotiou (2009) considers
this to be the exact case in national curriculum
on ESD. There are two distinct subject areas: the
statutory guidelines on the subjects that teachers
are legally bound to deliver by law; and the non
statutory subjects that teachers can teach if they
have the time and resources to do so. The
non-statutory subjects include citizenship, PSHE
and ESD.
An investigation of how these
subjects appear in the national curriculum can be
seen to highlight the implicit encouragement that
the National Curriculum gives for traditional
school subjects, more than spiritual, cultural,
social and moral (Chatzifotiou 2009). The
statutory subjects are interested in promoting
information based knowledge and skills, whereas
the non-statutory subject are more values based
(Chatzifotiou 2009), this in itself suggests where
the national curriculum places the value of
education.
Chatzifotiou (2009) suggests
that the optional nature of these value based
subjects reduces the importance of them and
teachers are less inclined to involve an element
of these subjects in their lessons. Rather than
promoting the complementary nature and
inter-relationships of the statutory and
non-statutory subjects, the difference in focus of
the guidelines relating to these subjects creates
a situation where they are not seen as
complementary with each other (Chatzifotiou 2009).
Despite the drive for ESD in
political rhetoric and the global pressure to
educate people on the increasing need for action
with regards to environmental issues, especially
outlined in DESD, ESD is presented very briefly in
the National Curriculum as an extra contribution
to the development of students in order for them
to perform in society in later life. This is also
reflected in the coverage or space that the
non-statutory subjects get in, not only the
curriculum in practice, but also in the guidelines
as they appear on paper. The predominance of space
is given to statutory subjects, with detailed and
prescriptive teaching requirements, whereas the
guidance offered for non-statutory subjects are
general and quite abstract (Chatzifotiou 2009).
Despite this, brief outlines
are offered as to where the skills of ESD could be
taught in relation to the statutory subjects;
these references, however, only indicate what
subjects have opportunity to include an element of
ESD without elaborating on how to implement them.
Furthermore, the language when describing ESD
expresses desirable aims rather than giving a
specific definition of what the terms mean or how
to implement them in the subject, instead teachers
find themselves with suggestions, general
information and no attainment targets
(Chatzifotiou 2009).
In another comment on the
national curriculum reforms with regards to ESD
Sauve et al (2005) suggests that it tends to focus
on providing students with the knowledge and
skills necessary to compete in the global market
and benefit from economic globalisation, without
supporting critical enquiry into the cases and
consequences of globalisation on the environment.
This is further exemplified by the analysis of the
language in various recent ESD documents, within
which the word ‘environment’ rarely appears, and
issues of economic and social dimensions of
sustainable development are expressed as more
important in the curriculum (Sauve et al 2005).
Hicks and Holden (2007) comment
that global issues have been on the educational
agenda for the last thirty years, and that during
this time there have been numerous educators,
internationally, that have responded to global
issues and contributed their professional
expertise to the development of teaching and
learning in this area. Different perspectives are
not mutually exclusive, and should be used to
further understanding of good practices in ESD
(Hicks and Townley 1982).
Good practice needs to
incorporate inter-disciplinary, the hidden or
informal curriculum, and the management of school
resources (Hicks and Holden 2007). Although the
national curriculum on ESD can be viewed as
somewhat deficit, there are resources that have
come out of such perspectives and expertise to aid
educators in an incorporation of ESD in different
disciplines, different modes of instruction, and
the management of resources.
Pike and Selby developed a map
of the field ‘global education’; based around four
dimensions, special, temporal, issues and human
potential, they developed innovative materials for
teachers and ran regional and national in service
courses (Hicks 2003). Their book ‘Global teacher,
Global Learner’ arose out of the Worlds Studies
Teacher Training Project that ran from 1982 to
1985, it provides a detailed description of the
four dimensions and provides ideas for teaching
and learning about them, and surrounding issues
(Pike and Selby 1988). A further example of a
model of ESD is that developed by Steve Pratchett
in 1984, and revised in 2004 and 2006. He proposes
a curriculum model to underpin ESD and uses real
cases to exemplify the uses (Pratchett 2008).
In
addition, Sterling (2001) offers a review of the
meaning of sustainable education, and provides
frameworks relating to the ecological design of
education that might help those working for change
towards sustainability. When participating in
WWF-UK in-service training programmes Sterling
comments that it is possible to see real change,
and a revitalisation of enthusiasm; he considers
the gap between what education should be like, and
what actually happens to best be closed by a
developing of a model of an aspired-to system of
sustainable education.
Further
teaching
resources for all stages of education are
available from a wide variety of NGOs. Lesson
plans, classroom activities and online resources
can be accessed and referred to for guidance and
inspiration for the inclusion of ESD in the
classroom. The DCSF website (DCSF Date unknown)
offers resources for Local Education Authorities,
Governors, students, communities and teachers. The
teaching resources are based on the Sustainable
Schools National Framework doorways and offer a
number of different approaches to helping pupils
understand the main issues of sustainable
development. Other local and national initiatives
from local organisations to global ones, and the
relative resources developed through these
movements, are available from Teachernet who
provide an A to Z listing for easy access to the
best practices and schemes for ESD.
Conclusions
It is clear from an outline of
the political and educational developments that
have led to an inclusion of global issues,
specifically sustainable development, in the
national curriculum that there is a recognition of
the importance of education in the drive to
promote sustainable development in the
international society. However, as it has been
seen, many believe that despite these intentions,
the national curriculum continues to fail to
include ESD effectively enough to promote real
life changes towards sustainability, locally,
nationally and globally.
The structure of the national
curriculum can be seen to contradict what it has
professed to do in its reform publication. The
language used to introduce ESD is confusing, the
space it takes up in the curriculum doesnot reflect the
importance it is claimed to have,and the lack of attainment targets leads to
a lack of due attention. There seems to be an
‘imperfect match’ between what the guidelines of
the national curriculum claim to promote and what
they actually allow teachers to deliver in the
classroom (Chatzifotiou 2009).
This is not the only picture
that can be painted, however, there are many
frameworks, initiatives, resources and training
packages that are directed at teachers including a
global element, with a focus of ESD, in schools.
Some of the examples above show that there are
positive movements towards resources for teachers
to encourage the inclusion of ESD in their
classrooms, and internationally, it has been
reported, there are positive movements in
education towards the goals and aims expressed in
political and educational policy (Los 2008).
However, through the
investigation of the developments globally, and
then a focus on how they impact on education in
this country, it seems that it may not be enough.
The severity of the environmental crisis as it is
reported does not seem to be reflected in the type
of action that is being taken in relation to
education and the national curriculum. If the
concern is as urgent as it is suggested, and
education really is as significant in this change
as many believe it is (Hicks 2002, Huckle and
Sterling 1996, Hicks and Holden 2007) then the
government needs to take more drastic action. ESD
needs to be better defined to allow for precise
research and assessment; all levels of education
and society have a vital role to play if real
sustainability is to become meaningful and
mainstream in order to cause real change.
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[I have been contacted by a reader of this
excellent piece of work who suggested adding
some additional resources: EducatorLabs.org