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Since the early 1990s we have seen many
calls for Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD) in universities. It was
given prominence at United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development in
Rio de Janeiro in 1992, with the inclusion
of Chapter 36 “Promoting Education, Public
Awareness and Training”, in Agenda 21.
Subsequently several declarations by the
international university community, such as
the well-known Tallories Declaration, have
been signed by university vice-chancellors
(or equivalent) thereby agreeing to build
sustainability actions into operations and
curricula.
More recently, the United Nations Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development has
proposed that all educators include
sustainable development concerns and goals
in their curriculum. Some national
governments have expressed similar interest;
for example, the 2005 United Kingdom’s
Sustainable Development Strategy identified
the “need to make ‘sustainability literacy’
a core competency for professional
graduates.” (HM Government, 2005; 39). Less
enthusiastically the Australian
Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (2006, no page)
encourages its members to “build capacity in
the community by educating the next
generation of professionals and leaders to
become fully aware of sustainability:
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for students, consider embedding elements of sustainability
at appropriate levels in academic
programs;
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for staff, consider implementing Professional Development
programs on sustainability themes.”
Similar to their international equivalents,
Australian universities have been slow to
implement sustainability policy and practice
(Bekessy et al. 2003, Thomas, 2004).
Since the early 2000’s, several reviews of
the extent to which Australian universities
have adopted Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD) have been undertaken. All
studies with a focus on curriculum change
have drawn generally similar conclusions:
there is interest in ESD, but little action
to implement it across all disciplines has
been undertaken (Carpenter & Meehan, 2002;
Thomas & Nicita, 2002; Tilbury et al, 2005).
There are many instances of stand-alone
environmental degrees, and of individual
subjects with an environmental or
sustainability focus. However, the infusion
of sustainable development principles into
the curricula of all (or even many) programs
has not been identified.
While the barriers to implementation of ESD
are many (Thomas, 2004) we sought to build
on this understanding and previous
curriculum projects at RMIT (Holdsworth,
etal. 2006) in the development of the pilot
project BELP1 to begin the
evolution of ESD at RMIT.
The Beyond Leather Patches (BELP) Project
Action research is the basis of the project
that focused on embedding sustainability
capability into core curricula at RMIT
University. This approach was used to
generate the kinds of organisational
learning needed to embed
sustainability-based curriculum innovations
across the university curriculum (Fien
2002). Importantly the aims of BELP were
consistent with the several international
declarations and internal policies that had
been signed or developed by RMIT;
specifically the Tallories Declaration.
Stage 1 – appointment of a project
co-ordinator to manage the project and to
support the staff in making curricula
revision led to:
-
development of web resource (http//www.rmit.edu.au/ssp/BELP)
to present information, tools and
examples to assist the conceptualisation
of sustainability education and to
support curriculum development.
-
selection of the School of Management and the School of
Property, Construction and Project
Management to participate; both Heads
were very supportive.
Stage 2 - from each School a ‘champion’ was
appointed to: change one of their subjects
to include ESD; co-ordinate ESD activities
in their school, and provide peer support to
the academics within their school
participating in the project. These
champions were a critical element of the
approach, as it is felt that a wider level
of engagement and empowerment will result
from the dialogue between colleagues who
understand the workplace culture and the
discipline areas. To overcome an
identified major obstacle cited in actioning
organisational change and curriculum renewal
– time – part of the project budget was used
to buying out the champions from some of
their daily activities.
Stage 3 - the champions took on the role of
instigating change by:
-
revising their subjects;
-
undertaking an audit of subjects in their School to identify
where ESD was missing,
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to organise workshops to involve other academics and identify
where curriculum change was possible
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initiate subsequent discussions with individual academics,
who wanted to participate in curriculum
change, to introduce ESD into their
courses.
The workshops were a key mechanism for
involving Schools’ staff. Each workshop was
opened by the respective Head, demonstrating
to staff that there was high-level
commitment to the project. Then a speaker
internal to the University, widely respected
for their research and/or teaching practice.
discussed why ESD was important for
graduates and the School. Finally an
external speaker, known in the relevant
industry for their leadership around
sustainability, discussed the role of
sustainability within the industry.
The success of BELP hinged on the
appreciation of the context in which the
work took place; especially requiring a
contextual understanding of the pedagogy
within the schools, how sustainability is
understood and implemented, and how it is
informed by professional industry bodies and
potential employer groups. The champions had
the required insight into the culture of
their School, and understanding of their
discipline area. They therefore had critical
insight to assist in the identification of
areas in which sustainability content could
be embedded in their School. As valued and
respected members of the School they ensured
that the project was based on collaboration
and shared understanding.
Outcomes of BELP
There are four identifiable outcomes to
date:
-
Curriculum development - across the two schools 16
(undergraduate and postgraduate)
subjects were revised or written to
incorporate ESD.
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Capacity building of staff- opportunities were presented to
the academics to learn both the
‘content’ (knowledge) associated with
sustainable development, and the
‘process’ of helping their students
engage with the content.
-
Framework for developing ESD curriculum – the experience
that, firstly curriculum renewal needs
to fit within the culture of the
organisation, and it needs to be owned
and driven by the participants. (This
framework will be reported in the
literature shortly, but if any reader is
interested please contact the authors.)
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Continuing curricula change – a subsequent grant has been
secured to help apply action learning
curriculum change processes to
additional Schools.
References
Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee
(2006) AVCC Policy on Education for
Sustainable Development, accessed August,
2006,
http://www.avcc.edu.au/documents/publications/policy/statements/Policy-on-Education-for-Sustainable-Development-Aug2006.pdf
Bekessy
S, Burgman M., Wright T., Filho W and, Smith
M (2003) Universities and sustainability,
Tela Papers, No. 11.
Carpenter, D. and Meehan, B. (2002)
“Mainstreaming environmental management:
Case studies from Australasian
Universities”, International Journal of
Sustainability in Higher Education, Volume
3, Issue 1, pp19-37. Available ProQuest
Information and Learning Company [May,
2002].
Fien,
J. (2002) Advancing sustainability in higher
education: Issues and opportunities for
research, Higher Education Policy, 15,
143-152.
Her
Majesty’s Government (2005) Securing the
Future: Delivering UK Sustainable
Development Strategy, TSO (The Stationery
Office), United Kingdom
Holdsworth, S., Bekessy, S., Hayles, C.,
Mnguni, P. and Thomas, I. (2006) Beyond
Leather Patches Project for Sustainability
Education at RMIT, in Filho, W.L. and
Carpenter, D. (eds), University
Sustainability in the Australasian
University Context, Peter Lang
Scientific Publishers, Frankfurt.
Thomas,
I (2004), “Sustainability in tertiary
curricula: what is stopping it happening?,”
International Journal of Sustainability in
Higher Education, Vol 5 No 1, pp33-47.
Thomas, I.
and Nicita, J (2002), “Sustainability
Education and Australian Universities,”
Environmental Education Research, Vol. 8,
No. 4, pp475-492.
Tilbury, D., Keogh, A., Leighton, A., Kent,
J. (2005) A National Review of Environmental
Education and its Contribution to
Sustainability in Australia: Further and
Higher Education, Report prepared by
Australian Research Institute in Education
for Sustainability (ARIES) for the
Department of the Environment and Heritage,
Australian Government, Sydney. (available
from
http://www.aries.mq.edu.au/project.htm) |
