Our key assumption: the SDGs cannot be achieved without strengthening the actors’ (professionals, consumers,…all categories, up to the decision making levels) “soft skills” that are necessary for fully apprehending the SDGs and taking relevant action. Our focus has been the area between the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), which we consider as learning objectives in the context of this project, and the practical applications of the principles involved: an area we have come to think of as ‘teachable skills’. Our purpose: to introduce skill sets that make space for transformative learning (TL) and enable a cross-disciplinary approach, as this opens the way for handling complexity from a perspective of sustainability, regeneration and relationality. We wanted to draft a practice-oriented Compendium for use in designing and delivering formal and non-formal adult education, to introduce and convey these teachable skills. Also, to test the Compendium in two pilot courses, one in higher education and one in non-formal adult education, apply and build on the outcomes of our previous E+ project which explored the boundaries of online TL, and further consolidate our partnership for addressing additional issues in ESD in a cross-sectoral way.
Education — formal, informal and non-formal — has been acknowledged to play a central role in enabling us to deal with the enormous challenges humanity faces. The ESD for 2030 Framework by UNESCO lists “transformational skills” and “transformative action” as key to help move the whole of society towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the Framework, “transformative action” is even listed as the first of three key notions that constitute the basis of ESD (Education for Sustainable Development). Non-formal adult education has developed educational practices for facilitating transformation in various, very specific contexts. Formal education is lagging behind, esp. in the higher education sector, considered key to educating future agents of change but focusing mainly on building and transmitting knowledge. There is a lack of adult education covering in a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral way the normative and behavioural aspects of SD, that manifests in initiatives failing to meet their objectives, e.g. in public engagement, consumer behaviour change, leadership, community development processes — all dependent on the inner strength of the individuals concerned. Needed now are capable educators on a large scale.