For decades there have been calls for education to address an ever-growing range of social and environmental challenges. In recent years these have culminated in the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) (2005-2014) and the Global Action Programme on ESD (2014-2019), each of which have had varying degrees of influence on national education systems. In reality, ‘mainstream’ education continues to pay little heed to sustainable development for a variety of reasons but two of the principle roadblocks are (1) the lack of clarity among educators on what ESD actually requires in terms of educator competences and (2) an apparent inability to measure ESD outcomes. An initial Erasmus+ funded project ‘A Rounder Sense of Purpose’ (RSP, 2015-18) has made a significant contribution in addressing these concerns having developed and tested a robust framework of competences for educators – of any discipline – who wish to educate for sustainable development. This has been translated into qualifications in various settings and has been disseminated through national and international conferences. Since RSP was first conceived, however, a significant international development has taken place in the form of the United Nations Agenda 2030 (UN General Assembly 2015) and the related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In light of this and the specific SDG Target 4.7 (education for sustainable development) we have identified the need to build on the achievements of our first project while addressing the globally agreed imperative to “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development” (UN 2015). To this end we propose the project ‘A Rounder Sense of Purpose: Phase Two’ (RSP II). The objectives of RSP II will be to: - Develop and implement the RSP framework for different phases of education aligning it with the SDGs and the related UNESCO learning objectives (UNESCO 2017); in this way the project also intends to contribute to the on-going international effort to draft indicators for SDG Target 4.7; - draw upon and contribute to research to tackle deep-rooted issues around motivation, conceptual understanding and assessment that were identified but could not be addressed fully in Phase I; - provide a tangible and accessible legacy in the form of a book giving a narrative account of the theory and practice behind the RSP framework. Teacher education remains a core focus because of its multiplier effect but a systemic understanding of the situation leads us to demonstrate the potential of the RSP framework elsewhere and to hone it further in order to enhance its transferability. Target audiences (and approximate numbers) therefore include: - University lecturers (80) - Pre-service (student) teachers (800) - Teachers and principals (500) - Other educators, e.g. inspectors, local authority and enterprises (100) - Academics/ experts (500) - Policy makers e.g. through Government policy forums (80) These numbers relate to face-to-face contact through workshops and in-depth training programmes. We also envisage reaching approximately 1,000 teachers though workshops and conferences. At the EU level we expect some 100,000 citizens (based on current traffic levels) to access our websites and publications. The project activities and the methodology used to carry them are indivisible because this is essentially an action research project. The emphasis is on action in the production of Output 1 while further research (Output 2) into issues that arose during the first phase of this project can best be achieved in the context of practical engagement with the programme with students (all educators in their own right) participating actively in the programme development process even as they are receiving it. Dissemination and the sustainability of impact are core concerns of RSP II, hence the focus on sharing our research outcomes as an outcome in itself. The publication of a book that shares the story of the entire process is proposed as our Output 3. The project aims to achieve a broad and deep engagement with the RSP competence framework by working through influential partner organisations in each participating country (and beyond) to develop and disseminate the framework. In this way we aim to move out of the ‘green ghetto’ of like-minded organisations and individuals and into the mainstream of educational discourse in our respective countries as well as internationally. Our partnership also has very strong links with United Nations agencies such as UNESCO and UNECE (UN Economic Commission for Europe) and we will take every opportunity to share our outputs through these agencies so that globally governments become aware that qualifications can be developed anywhere using this competence framework. In this way education for sustainable development will no longer be an esoteric concept with little practical meaning for teachers working at the classroom level.
The first phase of ‘A Rounder Sense of Purpose’ (RSP) was funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme from 2015 to 2018. The project partners developed and tested a framework of competences for educators – of any discipline – who wish to educate for sustainable development. This was already an important contribution to the international debate on educator competences. Calls for a more sustainable model of development have become ever more urgent and there is wide recognition that education will have a pivotal role to play in achieving this. Many teachers and other educators are, however, ill prepared for this role. What it means to be an educator for sustainability has not, until recently, been defined in clear terms. An earlier framework developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) defined 39 educator competences for education for sustainable development (ESD) but this proved too unwieldy for most educators to work with, hence the significance of developing an accessible and workable competence framework. The second phase of this project (RSP II) set out to: - Develop and implement the RSP framework for different phases of education aligning it with the SDGs and related international development; - draw upon and contribute to research to tackle deep-rooted that could not be addressed fully in Phase I; - provide a tangible and accessible legacy in the form of a book that would include the theory and practice behind the RSP framework. Each of the project’s eight partners became immersed in the task of implementing the RSP framework in a range of contexts. These include: - Student educators (UK; Netherlands; Switzerland) - Higher education tutors (Spain; Germany; Netherlands) - Tutors of student educators (Netherlands; Switzerland) - Community educators (Italy) - Primary school teachers (Netherlands; Cyprus) - Primary school principals (Cyprus) - All teachers via a national programme of compulsory continuing professional development (Hungary) In this way, the RSP framework has become permanently integrated, either whole or in part, into a range of programmes that have reached several thousand individual educators. This work, together with an extensive mapping exercise using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), led to the creation of a large database of activities linking RSP competences and specific SDGs that could be used with different age phases. All of this is searchable and feely available through the RSP website: https://aroundersenseofpurpose.eu/ This constitutes Intellectual Output 1. Alongside this work, partners conducted research that has led to a string of publications in line with our proposed Intellectual Output 2. This exceeded our expectations of ten peer-reviewed papers and/or conference papers several times over (see dissemination list). Thirdly, the production of the book (Intellectual Output 3) provided an opportunity for partners to showcase their work alongside other key researchers in the field. The book, being published by Springer, forms part of their series on the SDGs and promises to make a significant contribution to the field. The book is in English with French and Spanish versions available in PDF form via the RSP website. In Phase I we realised that it was currently not possible to create a Europe-wide qualification so in Phase II we have worked to embed RSP into accredited programmes so that it underpins qualifications in each partner country. This has led to every partner finding ways to embed RSP into modules or whole programmes while in Hungary and Cyprus it now underpins national professional development programmes for all teachers. Our aim in Phase II was to broaden and deepen engagement with the RSP competences among new audiences both within our partner countries and beyond. Again, we have been pleased to see how our efforts have been rewarded with widespread recognition of the framework. As RSP has continued to be disseminated across the EU and beyond, various translations have been made in support of programmes external to our own. The basic framework has so far been translated into 17 languages (Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Catalan, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian). Finally, the work of RSP was showcased across the higher and further education sectors by becoming the winner of the 2020 Green Gown Award and the International Green Gown Award in the category ‘Learning and Skills for the Next Generation’.