Paul Vare

This paper offers a rationale for how ESD related learning at postgraduate level can be assessed. It proposes a framework for evaluating whether assessments in Master’s level programmes align with the pedagogical approach of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). If assessment is to contribute to the overall learning process, then the nature of the assessment should reflect the pedagogy, values and principles associated with ESD. Utilising an Appreciative Inquiry model, existing models of competences for sustainable development have been used to develop the framework. The framework is not aimed at the performance of the students; rather, it is applied to the course itself to identify if assessment opportunities are in keeping with an ESD approach. The framework is applied to three examples from Master’s programmes, with which the authors are affiliated in England and Jamaica. The findings identify key characteristics that should feature in assessing learning for sustainability. The framework enabled the authors to gauge the extent to which their assessment regimes are in line with the aims, purpose and content of their programmes. While the examples cited are from the field of education, the framework can be applied to any Master’s programmes containing elements of sustainable development.

Secondary school students are granted few opportunities to change their world, yet they are expected to engage fully as citizens the moment they leave school. This issue is growing starker with multiple global crises contributing to mental health concerns. This situation stimulated a practical education for sustainability project designed to promote student agency by supporting small, student-led, community-based projects, planned and supported within the secondary school context. This research ran alongside the project in order to investigate (a) the impact of implementing these projects on the students involved and (b) the implications of this for their teachers. The research approach was based on Cultural-historical Activity Theory, which explores the learning generated through multi-layered interactions within a given activity system. In stimulating student agency, it was clear that the project had challenged existing practice. Students sensed a shift in power relations, remarking on how teachers respected and listened to their opinions. Those teachers who appeared more authoritarian appeared to experience the greatest transformation although ceding power did not come naturally, particularly where this challenged notions around teacher responsibility. In this way, teachers’ professionalism threatened to become the means by which they withheld power from their students. Implications of this for schools and policy are considered.

This chapter examines the persistent idea that educating teachers to enable them to practise environmental education should be a priority. It also explores why this has proved so difficult to bring about in practice. The need for environmentally educated teachers was a key point in the 1977 Tbilisi Declaration. Extensive competences for such teachers were set out in the 1980s. These were foundational ones in professional education, and competencies in environmental education content. The competences were seen as both universal in applicability, but only as starting points for contextually appropriate professional development. The chapter sets the competencies out in full and concludes that it is time to take them seriously.