Climate change: an issue for education
11 December 2009
With the science of climate change increasingly clear, sustainability is turning more and more into an issue for education, say academics from all over the world. This means teaching about risk and uncertainty and personal choice. Changing the way people think and behave has got to start with the young, they argue.
On Friday December 11 they will urge negotiators in Copenhagen to bring education into their negotiations and agreements.
The International Alliance of Leading Education Institutions, which brings together 10 of the world's leading centres for education research and development, is publishing a report, "Climate Change and Sustainable Development, the Response from Education". The IALEI, whose members include the Institute of Education London (IOE), is the world's first global think-tank on education. It says there are tough challenges if the potential of education for sustainability is to be mobilised. For example, teachers lack training and qualifications in education for sustainable development (ESD), and this crucial area of learning is too often tacked on to an overcrowded curriculum because it is not an exam subject.
Chris Husbands, professor of education at the Institute of Education London (IOE), says: "The basic science of climate change is clear: the earth is warming as a result of the emission of large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is clear, simple and the challenge now is to make sure that it is turned into wide public understanding.
"But at the same time, climatic changes are becoming more unpredictable. The huge complexities of the earth's climatic system make it more, not less difficult to decide what to do. This means that climate change is now as much as educational as a scientific problem.
"Education, fundamentally seeks to prepare people – mostly, but not entirely young people -- for the future. How do we prepare young people for a future which is unpredictable, where we only know that our current lifestyles, economic practices and forms of social organisation are going to be extraordinarily fragile, and possibly unsustainable. This is an enormous challenge for education systems."
The report will be the focus of a conference organised by the University of Aarhus, in Copenhagen on December 11 to coincide with the Climate Change Summit. It makes eight recommendations for embedding ESD into the entire ethos and work of schools.
• Education for Sustainable Development should play a key part in the negotiation of global agreements on climate change policy.
• The urgency of climate change policy risks narrowing the role of education to communication of advice defined by experts. This will be counter-productive in the long-term. We strongly recommend maintaining and implementing the more ambitious aims of ESD: providing people with the competences to take part in the shaping of sustainable development at all levels.
• Governments need to ensure that schools are able to play a leading role in ESD through the way education systems are managed, schools are organised and pupils taught.
• Whole-school approaches are promising: this means greater interdisciplinary work, active engagement and interaction with others outside school. These are recommended as a way of integrating ESD into current educational practices.
• Resources should be allocated to remedy the lack of teacher training in ESD. .
• Policy initiatives in teacher education should be coordinated with support for ESD at school level.
• Mediating organisations and groups should be established to promote interaction between researchers, teachers, NGOs, public officers and others in the field of ESD.
• Additional research should document the state of practice and identify promising practices, explore educational outcomes and identify opportunities and problems.
The alliance sees five key challenges, says Husbands. These are:
1.The risk and uncertainty problem (we don't understand enough how physical processes will affect our lives, so we cannot plan action with precision)
2.The personal /public problem (the lightbulb problem: it is easy for most of use to swap to low energy lightbulbs, but the wider public and institutional changes are more challenging)
3.The morality and personal choice problems (the SUV problem: most of use know that many of the things we do are bad for the planet, but we still do them)
4.The delayed gratification problem (….if we stopped emitting carbon today, carbon concentrations in the atmosphere would continue to rise for 60 years)
5.The invisibility problem (if carbon were coloured, the sky would have changed colour in our lifetime – it isn't, so it hasn't).
The alliance says education is not a "magic bullet" which will solve the problems of climate change and sustainability, but without co-ordinated educational interventions, even the best thought through technical policies will fail.
Barriers to overcome include limited teacher qualifications, subject divisions within schools and a narrow focus on vocational qualifications. "In an attempt to be competitive in a global market, educational policy in many countries is focused on controlling the effectiveness of education by means of tests and performance indicators. This reduces willingness among teachers and schools to experiment with new approaches to teaching and learning," says the report.
Ends
Notes for editors
The IALEI comprises representatives from the following member institutes:
• Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne, Australia
• Faculty of Education, University of São Paulo, Brazil
• Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
• School of Education, Beijing Normal University, People's Republic of China
• Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus, Denmark
• National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• School of Education, University of Cape Town, South Africa
• College of Education, Seoul National University, South Korea
• Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom
• Faculty of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Contact:
Chris Husbands, professor of Education, Institute of Education London (IOE) c.husbands@ioe.ac.uk 0777 484 1173
Press: Diane Hofkins, interim press officer, IOE d.hofkins@ioe.ac.uk 020 7911 5423 07976 703455