Background
Teachers’ capabilities to act as active facilitators of change in the ecological transition and to educate citizens and workforce to meet the future challenges is key to a profound transformation in the green transition.
Teachers’ sustainability competences have been researched widely, but a gap remains between research and the actual work of teachers. There is a need to operationalise sustainability competences: to describe direct links with everyday tasks, such as curriculum development, pedagogical design, and assessment. Due to the urgent need for a sustainably competent workforce, the project focuses on re- and upskilling VET teachers.
Educators are expected to include the four dimensions of sustainable development (environmental, social, cultural, and economic), UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Key Sustainability Competences (KSCs, UNESCO 2017) in all education provision to meet the 4.7 sub-goal of Agenda2030: “all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development”.
This need calls for an urgent operationalisation of educators’ sustainability competences – to support the goals with actions on sustainability and to transfer this understanding to all their students who are trained to be teachers. Furthermore, teachers, in all phases of their careers, need to have the possibility to become educators for a sustainable future.
Goal
EduSTA builds a community, “Academy of Educators for Sustainable Future”, and creates open digital badge-driven learning pathways for teachers’ sustainability competences supported by multimodal learning modules. The aim is to achieve close cooperation with training schools to actively engage in-service teachers.
EduSTA starts by mapping the contextual possibilities and restrictions for transformative learning on sustainability and by operationalising skills. The development of competence-based learning modules and open digital badge-driven pathways will proceed hand in hand and will be realised as learning modules in the partnering HEIs and badge applications open for all teachers in Europe.
Project time is 2022−2025.
Impact
EduSTA will be impactful for pre- and in-service teachers, and at institutional and policy-making levels. A diverse range of educational concepts on teachers’ sustainability competences and open digital badge-driven pathways will support the European dimension and facilitate the recognition of prior learning as micro-credentials.
EduSTA will equip policy makers with up-to-date knowledge and evidence on the transformative power the operationalised competences can offer to society and on the use of open digital badges in the context of sustainability competences. EduSTA will add to the attractiveness of the teacher profession by establishing teachers as key actors in the green transition.
Our consortium, “Academy for Sustainable Future Educators” (EduSTA), is a catalyst for leading and empowering profound change in the present and for the future to educate teachers ready to meet the challenges and act as active change agents for sustainable future. Emphasizing teachers’ essential role as a part of the green transition also adds to the attractiveness of teachers’ work.
Funding
The project is funded by the European Commission from the Erasmus+ Teachers Academies action. The Erasmus+ Teacher Academies action supports the development of teacher education in European cooperation.