Embedding Education for Sustainable Development in Further Education

In July 2009, LGEC began a new three-year “Sustainable Skills” project. This project is working with colleges in the North West to support tutors in embedding the concepts of Sustainable Development (SD) into the teaching of vocational courses, enabling students and tutors to improve their understanding of:

• their role in global poverty and other development issues;
• the relationship between their careers and sustainable development;
• practical skills that contribute toward positive social and environmental change.

LGEC is working closely with five partner colleges to provide training, develop contextualised activities and to facilitate a tutor support network. By disseminating best practice nationally to the further education (FE) sector, the project aims to create a legacy through which other vocational college tutors will adapt and use content and approaches from the project.  [click here for a link to useful resources and presentations]

Specific outcomes of the project include:

• Sustainable Development training for more than 50 tutors in the North West.
• The creation of eight piloted and evaluated SD activities in four vocational courses.
• Gains in SD knowledge, skills and understanding by 500 college students.
• A published “Framework for Sustainable Development in Business; Art and Design; Travel and Tourism; and Health and Social Care”, with best practices from the project.
• A series of 'FE Network events', exploring topics and sharing resources & information [click here for upcoming events NB our next event is The Governor's Role in Education for Sustainable Development at College, 6th December 2011].
• An end-of-project conference to share findings and provide further training.
• An online ESD resource bank for FE tutors. [click here for resources]
• A network of FE colleges focussed on embedding the principles of sustainable development across the entire institution.
• A quarterly e-mail newsletter focussing on ESD and the FE curriculum. [click here for newsletters]
• An SD workshop that can be included in Cert Ed courses for new tutors.

For more information, contact:

Vicky Hutchinson, Sustainable Skills Project Co-ordinator, vicky.hutchinson@lgec.org.uk
Sarah Whitman, Education for Sustainable Development Co-ordinator, sarah.whitman@lgec.org.uk
Phone: 01772 252299.

Photo credits (from top): GreenForAll.org; Vancouver Film School; Stephan Radway; Tom Purves.

The 'Sustainable Skills' project is funded by UKaid from the Department for International Development