Steps to boost education for sustainable development in teacher training |30 April 2013

Teacher education specialists from universities, ministries of education and environment from Mauritius, Botswana and Seychelles will during the week try to understand the education for strong sustainability and agency (ESSA) concept including their role in carrying out the programme in their respective institutions, have a better understanding and ability to use the ESSA tools and approaches in their work as teacher trainers in environment education, and formulate and agree on a strategy for networking with counterparts within each country.
 
The working session has been organised by the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD) at Gotland University in partnership with the Southern African Development Community Regional Environment Education Programme (SADC REEP) in collaboration with Seychelles’ Ministry of Environment and Energy and the University of Seychelles which is hosting the week-long workshop.

Three experts – Mphemelang Ketlhoilwe from the University of Botswana, Shepherd Urenje and Wolfgan Brunner from SWEDESD – are leading the workshop.

Welcoming the delegates and guests at the opening ceremony yesterday morning, the director general in the public education and community outreach division of the environment department, Jeannette Larue, said education for sustainable development has been incorporated in teacher training here since 1999 and the programme has been reviewed once with the help of SADC REEP.

She also acknowledged the countless in-service training workshops that have been carried out with other partners and non-governmental organisations, but admitted that a lot remains to be done to integrate climate change education in the school curriculum which is still being reviewed.

“We hope to learn and gain a lot from this workshop,” she said.
Mr Urenje, for his part, said it is expected that through this interactive workshop those taking part will at the end have a clear understanding of ESSA and how to improve sustainable education in teacher training in the countries concerned.