1. An argument for change - Education for Sustainability © Alexandra C. Popescu 1
An argument for change - Education for Sustainability
(By Alexandra Camelia Popescu, June 2013)
Education for Sustainability (EfS) is a holistic approach to education with emphasis on the
interrelationship of disciplines. (Willison 1997). In the last part of the century, extensive
discussion at national and international level on sustainable development gave rise to the
term EfS as a much more complex one than Education about Sustainability. The preposition
‘for’ bears the most relevance here. While EaS focuses only on environmental education (EE)
and development education (DE), EfS emphasises environmental sustainability and social
justice, as well as interrelated concepts such as peace, health, politics, multicultural,
citizenship, human rights. The role of EfS is to respond to change and interpret it as well as
become part of the change (Sterling, 1996) towards a more sustainable future – which means
transforming society.
Current unsustainable practices at all levels of societies spring from a wrong set of values that
affect our lifestyle and the way we perceive the relationship with the environments we live in.
Therefore, people need to be empowered for change. Education holds such a power if
designed and provided as a transformational tool. ‘Education should be of a quality that
provides the values, knowledge, skills and competencies for sustainable living and
participation in society.’ (UNESCO 2009)
EaS comprises formal learning activities about sustainability problems and new forms of
sustainable management (for example, environmental sciences about the environment).
Recent developments show that educational institutions are moving towards ‘institutions as a
role model’ by introducing green practices in their curricula and their campuses, as well as
getting involved in sustainability research initiatives. But the role of education should not stop
at influencing learning within the campus boundaries, it should continue in the community and
within learners’ personal lives: students should be empowered to use the acquired knowledge
and skills for sustainability when they graduate. They need to apply their learning in real life
so that they contribute to a sustainable future. And this is where EfS comes into play.
EfS is a more radical form of education - one that enables learners to recreate meanings in
society, to challenge dominant ways of thinking and behaving. EfS promotes interdisciplinary
and holistic learning, encouraging people to understand the complexities of and synergies
between the issues threatening sustainability. (Huckle and Sterling 1996). The focus should
be on systemic change (Living Sustainably 2009, p. 10). Information and awareness are just
the beginning of the process – learners must build individual capacity and motivation to
innovate and implement solutions. EfS can build such capacities. Practice of EfS nowadays
though needs a shift - from reactive measures to proactive behaviour, using questioning,
critical thinking and reflection in our learning processes, challenging assumptions and viewing
situations holistically to encourage participatory decision-making.

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As a VET practitioner delivering sustainability for business, I find that only a holistic approach
to these subjects and a focus on affective (how the learning influences students’ thinking and
way of life in the long term) can achieve any kind of emotional connection to a sustainable
future.
EfS concepts and their meaning
The current educational system, much as the rest of society, is based on the view of the world
as before the Industrial Revolution with major concerns concentrating around economic
growth and rationality and an assumed separation of people from nature. But the reality is that
the universe we live in is not static and there are dynamic changes to every aspect of life in
the present and about to happen in the near future. We have to be adequately equipped with
in order to tackle these changes: from technology, population growth, medical innovations
and genetic engineering to increased global warming effects, terrorism, security and collective
wellbeing.
EfS is more than just a new type of education – is a collections of tools based on the “big
picture” – the worldview that we are all connected and have to consider all processes as a
whole. TAFE institutions in Australia prepare for highly skilled people in industries that were
once considered essential to economic growth. But this is also based on an industrial
worldview where professional skills are learned separately from personal skills – where
values and ethics are not taken into consideration when planning for the future.
Brown (2005) argues that people’s worldviews have actually been changing over time and
each one of them is differently motivated to care for the environment. Some will be concerned
about our relationship with and the impact on the environment; others will take serious actions
to prevent further damage. EfS can use transformative learning techniques to help people
consider and move towards a more sustainable worldview – not forcing them into change, but
rather acknowledging their values and motivations and use them as a conversation point
towards the change. This change should eventually be reflected into everyday behaviour.
Brown identifies five ecological selves (or common worldviews) and proposes different
communication strategies that might best fit the educational process towards a sustainable
behaviour. Out of the five, the Eco-Strategist and the Eco-Manager resonate the most with
me: they are both worldviews that manage nature either to comply with the law (divine or
state) or they exploit it for profit, science and technology. I recognise them as underlying
principles to the Business units I currently deliver as a vocational trainer: while the required
outcomes of these units are exclusively related to industry skills, EfS would allow me to
invoke values such as honour, duty, stewardship, self-sacrifice for a good cause, status
motivation, inspiring to face challenges and other transformational principles that will fit
learners’ current view of the world whilst challenging it and inviting to reflection and
participation.

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EfS pedagogy
Sustainability is a journey of learning at every level of society – individual, family,
organisation, community, region, nation, globe. (Sidiropoulos 2011) EfS acts a powerful
catalyst on the learning journey. Powerful because it requires not only education, but a certain
kind of education.
EfS pedagogy builds upon traditional, transmissive education which puts the emphasis on
theories rather than values; abstraction rather than consciousness; neat answers instead of
questions.
Sustainability literacy is needed especially in universities and TAFEs that prepare students for
major professional areas (such as medicine, law, media, business). EfS must be carefully
used to achieve this literacy and the state of our world today proves that current pedagogies
are no longer efficient in this respect.
EfS pedagogy is transformative – while acknowledging the uncertainty and ambiguity of
concepts, it encourages the use of systems thinking – looking at the interrelationship of
knowledge and being centred on the learner (not the teacher).
EfS pedagogy also plays a crucial role in changing curricula and contextualising it for each
educational area. Human history is one of domination (of all planet eco-systems). Nowadays
there’s growing understanding that our history must be one of human harmony with nature –
to achieve this mindset change, this shift in values, education must provide learners with the
opportunities and tools to envision the sustainable future. Only then the capacity for action
and civic participation can happen.
EfS pedagogy is a combination of knowledge and practice. Praxis means different things to
different societies. While Anglo-Americans see praxis as a teaching method, Europeans see it
as the science of educating children into adulthood and draws upon other social sciences
such as psychology, sociology, philosophy etc. This is something I’ve experienced myself
growing up in a communist society for the first 10 years of schooling: while on school
grounds, teachers would take on more than one role: besides educators, transmissive of
knowledge (mostly propaganda in terms of history, economy and geography), they also acted
as our parents – this involved everything from physical punishment to moral lecturing and
spiritual guidance. Our duty was just to listen and digest information. After the fall of
communism, for the next six years of higher education, the journey to a democratic system
was extremely slow and the same type of teacher-centred education was delivered, although
it did allow for international influences. Only after arriving in Australia was I able to experience
a different kind of education at Notre Dame University – where collaboration and participation
in learning was completely new for me. But looking back to 2005 when I graduated from Notre
Dame, I realise that no sustainability concepts were ever embedded or discussed during my

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education, although I’ve undertaken two powerful units in change management and
organisational behaviour. At that time, the change scenarios only involved business process
and Human Resources changes within the organisation – no influences from the outside
environment. Another proof that the educational system, especially in higher education, needs
a change towards transformative learning.
EfS in teaching – challenges and opportunities
“Education, including formal education, public awareness and training should be recognised
as a process by which human beings and societies can reach their full potential. Education is
critical for achieving environmental and ethical awareness, values and attitudes, skills and
behaviour consistent with sustainable development and for effective public participation in
decision-making”. (UNESCO 2002).
A number of challenges rise from embedding EfS principles into teaching. At the same, they
create a lot of scope for new opportunities:
• Students don’t learn from books anymore; technology has reshaped the way learning
takes place. The challenge is to use new technology to connect with learners and the
opportunity is to involve them in the learning process by using the very methods and
electronic tools that alienate them from social participation.
• Students don’t go out to experience learning. Children don’t learn from nature as fifty
or a hundred years ago. Basic knowledge of local flora or fauna is fading away,
making it difficult for them to see the interconnections between humans and the
natural environment. The opportunity is to embed sustainability issues in all learning
and create activities that will allow students to reflect upon their impact on the
environment and other people, and envision ways to reconnect.
• As a VET trainer, my challenge as to change students’ values, which instead creates
the opportunity to encourage them to engage with sustainability issues and think
critically about them.
• TAFEs (and other educational institutions) should not be held responsible for
transforming students into responsible citizens, but rather educators should be
recognised for the difficulties they face when trying to teach affective
(emotional/caring) skills. Educational and cultural policies should concentrate on
implementing new forms of learning rather than expecting the creation of “new
students” under the same economic growth-centred learning.
• VET policies don’t encourage trainers to be open about affective learning – our role
as VET trainers is just one of guidance through the learning process. But I believe it’s
our duty and opportunity to teach values when we know students come to TAFE from
high school with a theoretical background that hasn’t allowed them to see themselves
as key change agents – at personal, organisational and societal level. This is a

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challenge especially during assessment which should have a central role in creating
opportunities for students to formulate their own views on issues. At the moment,
during assessment, students are required only to argue, prove knowledge or apply
skills based on rational, fact-based theories. A shift in training package design and
quality standards is therefore needed to achieve effective change.
Reference List
Australian Government, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts 2009, ‘Living Sustainably, The
Australian Governments National Action Plan for EfS’, Canberra ACT
Barrett Brown, C 2005, ‘Integral Communications for Sustainability’, Kosmos, An Integral Approach to Global
Awakening, Volume IV, Number 2, Spring/Summer
Dieleman, H & Huisingh, D 2006, ‘Games by which to learn and teach about sustainable development’, Journal of
Cleaner Production 14, 27 March 2006, pp. 837-847
Greenwood, J & Saebo, Aud B 2010, “Review of the Praxis Series”, Educational Action Research, Vol. 18, No. 3,
September 2010, pp. 401-411
Hedlund-de Witt, A 2012, ‘Exploring worldviews and their relationships to sustainable lifestyles: Towards a new
conceptual and methodological approach’, Ecological Economics, Vol. 84, pp. 78-83
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Publishing Group, Grand Rapids
Huckle, J & Sterling, S 1996, Education for Sustainability, Earthscan Publications Ltd, London, UK
Macquarie University Sydney, Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts & Australian Research
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Equipping People for Change, Commonwealth of Australia, ACT, booklet
Shephard, K. 2010, ‘Higher education’s role in ‘education for sustainability’, Australian Universities’ Review, vol. 52,
no. 1, pp. 14-22.
National Centre for Sustainability 2006, Transforming the way we live and work, leaflet
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the-VET-sector.pdf
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Century Revisited, revised and up-dated edition, Foresight
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Gaian-Generation-A-New-Approach-to-Environmental-Learning.pdf
UNESCO 1992, ‘Agenda 21’, Chapter 36, clause 36.3

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UNESCO 2012, Education for Sustainable Development, viewed on 20 June 2013,
<http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-for-sustainable-
development/>
UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development 2009, Bonn Declaration, viewed on 18 June
2013, <www.esd-world-conference-2009.org/en/whats-new/news-detail/item/bonn-declaration-adopted.html>
Willison, J, ‘Botanic Gardens and Education For Sustainability’, Roots Journal, Number 15, December 1997, viewed
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