Announcing the publication of the ESD in Post-Compulsory Teacher Education report
07 09 2011
ESD in Post-Compulsory Teacher Education is the output from research we carried out during the spring of this year as part our three-year Sustainable Skills Project partnership with Lancashire Global Education Centre. The survey marked the first national attempt to explore the place education for sustainable development (ESD) plays in teacher training for the further education (FE) sector.
The prominence of climate change, declining resources and the UK’s green-skills deficit, together with the leading role played by FE in vocational education and training, might lead to the natural conclusion that FE teacher training would routinely include ESD. To test the reality of this assumption we invited over 10% of English FE colleges (each of which had in-house teacher training provision) from 9 regions to tell us what they actually do in relation to this issue. 60% of these responded.
We think their answers make for some pretty interesting reading. A couple of standout findings are that:
- only 44% of responding FE colleges incorporate any opportunities for their beginning teachers to learn about ESD
- Only 15% of FE lecturers teaching on teacher training course have themselves undertaken any continuing professional development on ESD
We also surveyed one university from each of the regions which offers initial teacher training for the FE sector. A pretty similar picture emerges.
But perhaps the most alarming thing was not revealed by the statistics, but by the observation of one respondent that, ‘learners are less interested in becoming ethical practitioners and more interested in studying things to make them better teachers.’ We would like to think that the best teachers are always striving for ethical excellence. What’s more, as any advocate of ESD will attest, practising the processes of education for sustainable development is guaranteed to extend and hone any teacher’s skills.
Please do take a look at the full report. We would love to receive any comments, as too would Vicky Hutchinson, Lancashire Global Education Centre’s Further Education Co-ordinator: Vicky.hutchinson@lgec.org.uk
Lancashire Global Education Centre
Click here to download the final report.