Table 4.4 - Effectiveness of ESD Guidance
Answer Choices – Total Responses: 8 Responses
Very effective 2 25.00%
Quite effective 4 50.00%
Of little effect 1 12.50%
Not effective at all 1 12.50%
The survey found that colleges are referring mainly to Colleges Scotland and Education Scotland for guidance on ESD delivery within their institution (Table 4.3). They are also referring to the Scottish Funding Council and the Environmental Association for
Universities and Colleges, but to a lesser extent (Table 4.3). It is encouraging that
Learning for our Future (Scottish Executive, 2006) and Learning for Change (Scottish
Government, 2010) have also been referred to by some colleges (Table 4.3), which may indicate that if the Scottish Government were to advocate specific learning for
sustainability policy for the college sector, rather than just guidance, it would be embraced. Of the colleges who responded only 25% found these documents and institutions to be very effective, whilst a further 50% found them to be quite effective (Table 4.4). Although it is difficult to draw generalisations from the number of responses, I have had staff at all levels advise the very same thing to me personally. Until there is definitive legislation in place, governing learning for sustainability within college education, the delivery will continue to be patchy, not only across the sector as a whole but also within individual colleges. This is not only a problem in Scottish FE. The General Assembly of the United Nations
‘acknowledges there is a need to further mainstream sustainable development at all levels’ (United Nations, 2012, p2). This concept of ‘mainstreaming’ is vital in sectors where sustainability is vulnerable to other pressures, or where it relies upon a small cadre of enthusiasts. The sector’s tendency to rely upon, and adhere to legislation is of course a mixed blessing. As well as signalling a potentially worrying dependence on hierarchical styles of planning, it also raises questions about the sincere moral and institutional embrace of ESD. In other words, there is a danger ESD will be engaged with superficially because
institutions have been told they have to do so, without the required step-change in culture which is required to be truly considered a sustainable organisation. In these circumstances legislation may not be a good thing.
Wals (2014) recognised that ‘the promotion of ESD in higher education is considered crucial to building a sustainable future and to placing young people at the centre of development’ (p12). This is equally important in Scottish FE, which is responsible for educating a large percentage of Scotland’s future workforce. Furthermore, Scottish FE also plays an important part in local communities and has opportunities for influencing the mind-set of older students who attend for additional qualifications, or for continuous professional development as part of their existing employment, or purely for recreational purposes. All of these openings to engage with students should be exploited in order to create a sustainable future, by ensuring that learning for sustainability is evident across the college campus and curriculum as a declared and actual value. However, whilst
sustainability incorporated into work-related and recreational learning is important, it should also be recognised that ‘there is a need for distinction between sustainable
development competence (e.g. citizen’s capacities to contribute to sustainable living both professionally and personally) and ESD-competence (e.g. an educator’s capacity to help people develop sustainable development competence through a range of innovative teaching and learning practices)’ (Wals, 2014, p13). Without effective guidance, which will need to be driven by an authority to which the colleges will properly attend, such as Colleges Scotland, it is difficult to incentivise educators in large numbers to acquire the skills and knowledge required to enable them to become competent sustainable
development educators. This may indeed be a structural weakness of the sector, if instructions are always needed.
When evaluating the practical guidance that is available for the FE sector in Scotland, it would appear that in learning for sustainability terms it has been overlooked to a certain extent. There are specific policy initiatives in place for schools, such as Curriculum for
Excellence (CfE), with learning for sustainability embedded. Curriculum for Excellence
now has sustainability at its core, covering it in topics such as food and health, in relation to people, place and environment, within technology skills and knowledge and also
referring to planet earth and energy sources, to name but a few (Education Scotland, n.d.).
Curriculum for Excellence ‘aims to achieve a transformation in education in Scotland by
providing a coherent, more flexible and enriched curriculum from 3 to 18’ and ‘includes the totality of experiences which are planned for children and young people through their
education, wherever they are being educated’ (Education Scotland, n.d.). However, early evidence suggests that these ideals are translating better into primary education. This may be because CfE has interdisciplinary learning at its core and ‘primary teachers are perhaps better equipped than secondary teachers to employ techniques suited to interdisciplinary studies’ (Humes, 2013, p88):
This is because they have been trained to work across the curriculum and are used to structuring their teaching in ways that draw attention to links between different subjects. They are also responsible for the early development of literacy and
numeracy which are so fundamental to understanding in all areas of the curriculum. The fact that children remain with the same teacher for most of the school day is an additional advantage which primary schools have over secondaries (Humes, 2013, p89).
If it has been found that embedding CfE is problematic at secondary education level, then interdisciplinary learning is equally, or even more difficult, in FE where the teaching structure can be just as fragmented and siloed.
Not only has Scottish primary and secondary education had the formal ESD friendly curriculum overhaul provided by CfE, it also has the highly successful – particularly in primary education – Eco-Schools movement and the Green Flag awards which aid
successful ESD. Furthermore, the One Planet Schools initiative has received government approval, whereby sustainability issues are tackled through a whole school approach integrating ESD, Global Citizenship and Outdoor Learning. Again, this is another effective model that could be utilised within college education in Scotland. The One Planet Working Group also recommended all teachers needed to address learning for sustainability in their teaching. This has now been adopted by the independent
professional regulatory body, the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), which has revised its professional standards. The inclusion by the GTCS of learning for
sustainability, not only as an attribute of effective teaching, but also as a core underpinning value, is of potentially immense significance because it commits the profession in all of its forms to the support and implementation of learning for sustainability. This is, as
UNESCO has pointed out, ‘a significant development that will require a national commitment to pre-service and in-service training of all members of the profession’ (UNESCO, 2013, p8). Nevertheless, the scale and profile of the value incentivises its adoption and expression across the Scottish teaching body. There is no GTCS equivalent
in FE, however should one be implemented, FE could learn lessons from the GTCS’s adoption of learning for sustainability as a core value.
All of these successful initiatives were recognised by the United Nations, which believes that Scottish education has ‘a greater focus on a more integrated and coherent approach to sustainable development and ESD with education being recognised by policy makers and practitioners as a key enabler in the transition to a sustainable society’ (UNESCO, 2013, p4). It seems clear that where policy makers have focused on specific areas of education and delivered initiatives such as CfE and the Eco-Schools programme, the progress made in learning for sustainability has been extremely encouraging.
A number of factors impede the translation of these gains to Scottish FE, such as:
Insufficient ESD practice.
Lack of support from college management.
Official guidance is erratic and the sector appears to rely on individual initiatives.
However, because there are insufficient ESD practitioners to overcome these impeding factors, it is unlikely the initiatives above will become a reality across the board in Scotland’s Colleges in the near future. Moreover, if these initiatives were developed further for FE, then college Principals would have clear instructions and would know exactly where to refer to in order to embed learning for sustainability within their college, instead of the fragmented picture shown in Table 4.3. Furthermore, definitive initiatives may prove more effective than the guidance currently available (Table 4.4).
Looking beyond what is available to direct learning for sustainability in college education, the account again in HE is more encouraging and there maybe examples from which FE can learn. There is guidance available from the Higher Education Academy and the Quality Assurance Agency addressing sustainability which can be evidenced by:
We are pleased to have co-convened the development of this important guidance document in partnership with the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). We have a rich heritage in education for sustainable development having supported and produced influential documents and research reports that have helped shape education for sustainable development in the higher education sector (Higher Education Academy and Quality Assurance Agency, 2014, p3).
The lack of legislation and political direction is at odds with the student requirement to attain sustainability knowledge (Drayson, 2015). Research conducted by the National Union of Students and supported by the Higher Education Academy over the last 5 years with students across the UK has established ‘that over 80% of students want their
institution to be doing more on sustainable development and over 60% of students want to learn more about sustainability’ (Drayson, 2015, p3). Nevertheless, the reality is ‘that the reorientation of higher education towards comprehensive inclusion of ESD is making slow progress across the sector as a whole’ (Drayson, 2015, p5). Furthermore ‘significant leadership is needed at all levels within the UK’s education system to encourage and achieve wider adoption of ESD’ (Drayson, 2015, p5). Drayson (2015) has therefore established that where leadership has been measured in sustainability education in the UK, it has been found to be lacking even in an area of supposed strength such as universities. These vulnerabilities are also evident in Scotland’s Colleges, where leadership is required, not only internally but across the governmental agencies responsible for shaping FE policy and ensuring ESD is on the Scotland’s Colleges’ agenda.
The lack of available and effective guidance is not only an issue in Scottish FE, or indeed education across the board in the UK, but also in other developed countries. A study in the USA found that a lack of appropriate tools to guide curriculum development hampered efforts to design sustainability programmes in schools. This was evidenced by Warner and Elser (2015) who reported that ‘environmental educators and school administrators realize the importance of solution-based education, but they have few tools to guide their efforts in designing sustainability programs in schools’ (p2).
As previously indicated, where colleges look to external sources of governance and guidance they are more inclined to intend Colleges Scotland and Education Scotland (Table 4.3). Thus it could be argued that these institutions have more power for driving learning for sustainability in Scotland’s Colleges than is currently acknowledged. Clear guidance is certainly imperative because ‘to integrate sustainability-oriented learning in an entire system has already shown to be quite a challenge in many schools, universities and companies alike’ (Wals, 2014, p14). This challenge is pervasive in college education and double difficult to confront at a time of ‘concurrent educational reforms towards efficiency and accountability means it is not conducive for such a re-orientation’ (Wals, 2014, p14). Direction and re-orientation need to come from an authority to which the colleges will listen if there is to be genuine and lasting policy change of the kind for which Principals are accountable. To achieve this objective, many commentators believe that it will be
‘essential to develop an overarching UK Strategy for sustainable development which sets out a clear vision about the contribution learning can make to its sustainable development goals’ (Martin, et al., 2013, p1537). Even accepting the autonomy of the Scottish system the point holds that the formulation of vision must come from the key political actors if college Principals are to be supported and motivated to change.
A further problem with the survey was of course self-selection i.e., that the colleges which did respond are likely to be those that are addressing ESD, or at least have it on their strategic radar. The colleges that chose to ignore the survey may have done so because they believed they have nothing positive to report, which may be accurate, or which may be a reflection of unconfident Principals in their perception of their own institutions. Indeed, where Principals did react in this way it is perfectly conceivable that they were unaware of areas of successful ESD work in the curriculum, or insufficiently conscious of the ESD ethos in rapidly changing or indeed merged institutions. Another reasonable conjecture is that some colleges already responsive to the best quality external guidance and documents have already begun to move beyond this level of compliance to something more sophisticated and advanced (Table 4.4). This does not invalidate the importance of good national guidance, but it does recognise that colleges faced with intense external pressures and rapid internal change, may be at varying stages of the ESD journey, of which even newly appointed Principals are incompletely informed.
Even in those cases where colleges advised that they do refer to policy documents,
resources or external agencies for guidance on ESD (Table 4.3), it is important to underline that there has been no formal audit conducted across Scotland’s Colleges to establish if these claims are in fact correct. It is noteworthy that Scotland’s Colleges are also signatories to the EAUC’s Universities and Colleges Climate Commitment for Scotland (UCCCfS), whereby they are required to report their carbon emissions with an aim to reducing emissions as well as providing modules and courses that address the challenges posed by climate change. Again, there is no audit element to the UCCCfS to ascertain if these objectives are actually being attained. This weakness is not unique to FE. It is also apparent in HE where, despite a number of initiatives which institutions have committed to – including declarations, charters and conferences – which all provide supporting
guidance, there is nothing to ‘ensure that the signatory institutions implement sustainable development within their systems’ (Lozano et al., 2013a, p18).
The absence of audit on a scale commensurate with the ambitions of ESD is a problem. If guidance is not monitored or indeed adhered to, we may ask is it because the ‘guidance is not prescriptive about how education for sustainable development should be delivered, because it recognises that educators will have their own ideas, will be working within distinct local and national contexts, and will be influenced in most cases by broader institutional strategies’ (HEA & QAA, 2014, p7). There are compelling arguments that prescriptive guidance would be more successful in Scottish FE in supporting the very clear requirement of e.g., Learning for Change (2010) and the UCCCfS. Guidance is not matching the performance of prescriptive regulation. This was starkly confirmed by one college Principal who stated in the research that if Education Scotland or the Scottish Funding Council told him he had to ensure ESD was embedded across the curriculum then he would.
The lack of legislation driving ESD in Scottish tertiary education is not a new concern. Even prior to the UNDESD, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) highlighted concerns that the emerging legislation, which would become the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005, made no mention of sustainable development or ESD (Watson, 2015). To address this deficit, NGOs and Members of Parliament worked successfully to amend the proposed legislation and had the following text included:
In exercising its functions, the [Scottish Funding] Council is to (a) have regard to the desirability of the achieving of sustainable development; and (b) in particular, encourage the fundable bodies to contribute (so far as reasonably practicable for them to do so) to the achievement of sustainable development (Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005, s20(a)).
As a result of this, the SFC has funded a number of initiatives to further ESD progression in Scottish tertiary education. One such project was the ESD in the Scottish College sector project on which I acted as a Project Consultant, firstly employed by Scotland’s Colleges and then in the second half of the project by the EAUC. It was this project that enabled me to gain access to colleges in order to pursue this research and also to further my experience as an ESD practitioner. Funding for the ESD in the Scottish College sector project has subsequently ended. The SFC also funds the EAUC’s UCCCfS initiative. However, ‘the tactics that created successful pilot programmes are different than the tactics and strategies necessary for expanding those pilots into policy and mainstream practice’ (Hopkins, 2015, p135). Hopkins (2015) also questions the extent to which successful pilot programmes can
be documented in a manner which supports their wider implementation, especially in relation to those who have the mentoring skills to assist others to replicate programmes. Furthermore ‘in some cases, documentation of successful programmes does not exist and there is no funding to provide mentors to others who desire to replicate a programme’ (Hopkins, 2015, p135). Moreover, Hopkins’ important allusion to mentoring raises
another area of both great potential and considerable challenge, that an effective mentoring scheme could make a marked difference to the effective dissemination of ESD awareness and commitment in an institution. This would require leadership, training and financial resources that may not be forthcoming. However, ‘if we are to increase the number of graduates with capabilities in sustainability, we need to allow for the development of academics with the pedagogy, knowledge and skills to develop sustainability-related courses’ (Holdsworth & Thomas, 2015, p9). All of this suggests, that because funding is no longer available from the SFC for the ESD in the Scottish College Sector Project, any progress made to date will be difficult to maintain.
During 2011 the Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges (Morrison, 2012) were revised. There was significant input into this process from the SFC and other members of the ESD community and the revised Professional Standards came into effect in March 2012 (Watson, 2015, p93). From that date there is an expectation that ‘the [college] lecturer should be able to: Plan strategies to promote sustainable development’ (Morrison, 2012, p9). It has been argued by Watson (2015) that ‘Scotland also has a concerted and wide-ranging programme of policy change and support in place to ensure that ESD in colleges, universities, and in Community Learning and Development matches the progress that has been achieved in schools’ (p93). Watson (2015) is certainly correct in key
respects, sheis right that the key aim is for FE and HE to achieve the same level of ESD success achieved in schools. However, as this research has shown, this is not the actuality in all of Scotland’s colleges. The Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s
Colleges is all well and good in theory, but in reality it appears to be putting the pressure
on lecturers to promote ESD, but without the active regulated support and mentoring systems that ought to be driving college management teams.