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ESD practice in Southern Africa: Supporting participation in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
... The consultation process resulted in a number of key findings (see Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2006a;2006b;2006c;2006d). For the purposes of this paper, only the main findings are shared, and readers are encouraged to source the more comprehensive consultation reports for more detailed insights. ...
... However, these ESD practices will simply remain 'nice to have's' if adequate institutional and policy support is not provided. Similarly, good monitoring and evaluation strategies will be needed (see Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2006c;2006d). For ESD to be mainstreamed, curriculum and learning support materials will need to be developed, revised and adapted. ...
... 1 The World Summit on Sustainable Development endorsed Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 (Rio Earth Summit, 1992) on Education, Training and Public Awareness which first proposed that education and training systems around the world need to re-orient towards sustainable development. 2 The individual ESD Consultation Reports are not available as public documents; the information in these reports has been synthesised in the four publications by Lotz-Sisitka et al. (2006a;2006b;2006c;2006d). 3 When referring to ESD practice here, I make reference particularly to environmental and sustainability education initiatives, given the dominance of the environmental and natural resources sectors in the ESD consultations. ...
Participating in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainability: Voices in a southern African consultation process
H Lotz-Sisitka
Abstract
This paper documents the outcomes of the consultation process on participating in the UNDESD which was led by the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme in 2005/2006, assisted by the Rhodes University Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit and Environment Africa. The goals of the consultation process were to explore interpretations and meaning-making around the global discourse of ESD in a southern African context. Findings from the consultation process provide useful baseline information on the status of debate on sustainable development in educational circles; participation and partnerships; insights into environmental and sustainability education (ESD) practice and mechanisms needed for supporting this practice. The paper ends by outlining a research agenda for ESD in southern Africa, as discussed during the consultation process.
... The following literature review reveals the concept of sustainable development from an array of perspectives and discusses how these perspectives explain the world to which we belong. The review also reveals a variety of opinions regarding the worth of Education for Sustainable Development within the school curriculum, as well as the challenges posed by its implementation (Huckle, 2001;McKeown, 2002;Lotz-Sisitka, Olvitt, Gumede & Pesanayi, 2006). As teachers are considered herein as the core implementers of sustainability concepts in the school curriculum (Calder & Clugston, 2003), literature also serves to illuminate how teachers are viewed and view themselves as professionals (Huckle, 2000(Huckle, , 2001McKeown, 2002& UNESCO, 2005. ...
... The SADC REEP ESD Consultation report revealed two main issues with regards to ESD policy implementation (Lotz-Sisitka, Olvitt, Gumede & Pesanayi, 2006). The first issue pertains to the lack of diverse role-player collaboration that takes place when policy is being formed, the second being the inability of institutions to successfully implement ESD initiatives and programmes. ...
... Although sub-Saharan Africa has developed strategies for implementing ESD it still remains up to schools and businesses at the local level to develop their own policies (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2006). The SADC REEP ESD Consultation process revealed that countries in Southern Africa have shown a weak effort to support ESD via policy. ...
... The author further laments that the bulk of this overconsumption is enjoyed by only 20% of the world's population who consumes 80% of its resources. Lotz-Sisitka et al. (2006a), share the same sentiments with Rosenburg (2004),that there has been increasing consensus at the global level that human development is not progressing as effectively as western economic models of progress and development would have us believe instead trends indicate that the neo-liberal model and the way it is being implemented is creating a global trend towards escalating poverty, inequality, crime and unemployment and these have negative impacts on the environment ,threatening ecological sustainability and holding back sustainable development. Economic growth under the contemporary neoliberal model does not appear to be abating these sustainability issues, although much has been said about ecological integrity, economic viability and a social just society in sustainable development discourses. ...
... Additionally, people were taught knowledge as a body, no specialization was encouraged, and hence issues of unemployment which also leads to ecological sustainability today were unheard of.NEPAD 's Action Plan in Lotz-Sisitka et al. (2006a), notes that education in Africa has deteriorated, graduates at all levels are unemployable because of poor quality education they received, aggravating unemployment. This paper argues that the individualistic and highly specialist training is leading to this high unemployment. ...
This contribution presupposes that revitalization of African principles of life would significantly enhance ecological sustainability. It has argued that for ecological sustainability to be achieved there is need to revitalize and emulate African principles of life which appreciated and operated within nature's limits, if the world is not to go extinct, as survival and a decent life depends on sustainable harnessing of nature and nature's provision of stable resources. The paper concedes that leaving the African principle of life idle and latent is just as good as committing suicide as modern ways of life prove to be contrasting approaches to ecological sustainability. The paper also revealed that growing economies through competitive global capitalism with its associated model of development based on principles of individualism, greediness, competition, exploitation and inequality are proving unsustainable thereby necessitating a relook to the south for alternative approaches to development and ways of life that are equitable and sustainable. The paper creates a space for critical, innovative and reflexive deliberations, on new development models that incorporates African perspectives by contending that development models must strive to consolidate what was good in traditional Africa with present ideals if the future is to remain meaningful, certain and realistic It must be acknowledged however that the hallmark of this paper is reflexivity and not a recipe.
... It also means raising the normative questions suggested by Lotz (1999) (Jickling, 2002;Stevenson, 2002: 192). From a southern Africa perspective, Lotz-Sisitka, Olvitt, Gumede and Pesanayi (2006) also acknowledge conflicts and contradictions in value deliberations. They note the possibility of "ideological ambivalence and ideological blockages" and the need for practitioners to "navigate ideological blockages, where particular views on sustainable development are 'pushed' / strongly held" and to be able to highlight situations when, for example, a social justice or ecoefficiency ideology dominates discourse to the exclusion of the other (ibid.: 23). ...
... The initiative reported on in this paper, initially developed as a Change Project in 2011/12 within the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and supported by an Advanced International Training Programme (ITP) on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education. Its relevance can be seen in relation to regional goals, such as those put forward by the Southern African Development Community, who agreed to support the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development initiative where several themes were identified highlighting specific needs (Lotz-Sisitka, Olvitt, Gumede & Pesanayi, 2006). In supporting ESD practices a need to strengthen leadership to be more able to respond to socio ecological challenges by paying more attention to ESD approaches in universities was noted (ibid). ...
It has been observed by several scholars, commentators, and sustainability-related bodies that one of the most important ways of realising sustainable development is by integrating it in both what is taught and how it is taught (pedagogy). This is because education is very important in shaping people’s attitudes and informing their choices. The approach of mainstreaming Education for Sustainable Development in our education systems should rise above the traditional boundaries that build walls, which tend to limit communication between different disciplines and faculties/ schools. Yet, for this to be realised, managers of education institutions and teachers ought to be co-opted into the sustainability ideals. This chapter explains the steps that have been taken by Uganda Martyrs University towards mainstreaming Education for Sustainable Development in the university’s ‘way of doing things’. It also explains the challenges met, some of the achievements realised so far, and what still needs to be done.
... In southern Africa, the SADC REEP undertook research documenting the interface of poverty, health, environment and education, and came to a similar conclusion (Lotz-Sisitka 2008) to that reached by Gough (2006, as raised by Scott 2009), i.e., that there is a need to move away from problem posing, to strengthening agency and capability for risk negotiation in the everyday in environmental education (Lotz-Sisitka 2008). A SADC REEP 14 country consultation report on participation in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development reflected concerns that environment and sustainability education and their research ought to contribute to the search for alternatives and strengthen agency for change and adaptation (Lotz-Sisitka et al. 2006). Practice-centred approaches to learning and research that acknowledge the possibility of agency and capability (Lotz-Sisitka 2008; O'Donoghue 2007) are rapidly emerging in southern Africa in response to a loss of faith in postmodern relativism, and critical theory inspired structural critiques that get stuck in a philosophy of consciousness and constructivist meaning making mediations (Lotz-Sisitka and O'Donoghue 2007). ...
This paper responds to a keynote paper presented by William Scott at the 2007 World Environmental Education Congress held in Durban, South Africa. The keynote address reviewed 30 years of environmental education research. In this response to William Scott's paper I contemplate the way in which environmental education research may enable reflexivity in modernity and develop knowledge that can serve as cultural mediator between individual and society. Through emphasizing ontology, I consider the reality of global knowledge production in relation to the way in which ontology may influence the reasons how and why we come to do particular forms of research, providing an ontological reference for the ever-expanding pluralism that characterizes the field of environmental education research. The paper comments on various aspects of the Scott paper, but presents an argument for not only valuing pluralism, methodological experimentation and 'reaching out', but for embracing the cosmopolitan implications of wider ontological referents of environmental concerns in environmental education research. The paper argues that research in environmental education ought to become ontologically defensible at both local and global scales.
As the twenty-first century continues to unfold, African societies are characterised by the continuing effects of a long history of colonial intrusion, the challenges associated with establishing new societies and governance structures following the post-1950s’ independence period and a complex array of risks and uncertainties associated with the more recent spread of hyper-capitalism, globalisation and earth system degradation. African societies, like societies elsewhere, are in the process of working out what the full meaning of educational quality might be in such a world. In this chapter we suggest that in working towards a fuller understanding of the meaning of educational quality, there is need to consider insights provided by environment and sustainability education (ESE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). These perspectives can potentially also frame and provide perspective on emerging research agendas for ESD in Africa, as demonstrated in the chapters of this book. We propose the need to place emphasis on ESD learning processes in conceptions of educational quality and, in turn, probe how such ESD learning processes are conceptualised.
In this response article, I draw on critical realist perspectives to engage with the argument put forward in Bengtsson's study, which sees agency as an ontological necessity for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) policy engagement. Bengtsson supports a notion of the logic of contingent action over the logic of power as dominance, suggesting possibilities for agency and resistance. Although I do not in principle disagree with the agentive possibilities embedded in this aspect of the Bengtsson argument, it is the scope of the conceptualization thereof that I consider in this response. I start with considering the limitations of a Westphalian analysis of policy appropriations and agency for ESD, and argue that the Westphalian frame for policy analysis may be inadequate for capturing the significance of non-state actors and wider generative mechanisms such as informal normative structures, and private, economic power in the global political economy. Drawing on Fraser's (2008) concept of the transnational public sphere, I explore other potential possibilities for agency-centered appropriations or negations of, and/or resistance to ESD policy discourses, potentially expanding the agency-centered perspective referred to in Bengtsson's analysis and critique of policy making for ESD, or, at the very least, by offering a wider view of possibility for what he refers to as the ‘ineradicable moment of conflict, or antagonism.’ In particular, I broaden the notion of the transnational public sphere to be inclusive of Dussel's (1998) three concerns of transformation, namely; poverty and wealth inequality, environmental degradation, and narrow rationalities involving ongoing colonization of people, territories and resources. In doing this, I concur with Fraser, who suggests that the concept of the public sphere may well be “so thoroughly Westphalian in its deep conceptual structure as to be unsalvageable as a critical tool for theorizing the present” and suggest that public sphere thinking and associated conceptions of agency require expansion, which I offer from postcolonial and decolonization literature, critical realism, ontological experiences, and reflection on Environmental Education (EE) /ESD policy in the southern African region. Ultimately, I propose need for a more radical framework for EE/ ESD policy research that reaches beyond analyses of appropriations of policy within the Wesphalian state framework, and that moves beyond critiquing or seeking out resistance moments associated with the assumptions of trickle down effects from UN level policy, or analysis that is centered on the EE versus ESD debate. Such a framework requires a revitalized notion of agency involving commitment to collective, relational (including the socio-materially relational) and transgressive forms of agency for deep societal transformations all round. Overall, it seems that environmental education policy and praxis research conceptualized within a decolonizing transnational sphere frame appears to still be an open and as yet under-explored terrain.
This article explores language practice in Botswana in the context of disseminating information related to environmental issues. Despite the fact that indigenous languages are invaluable carriers of environmental education, the current language policy in Botswana does not provide room for the use of the different indigenous languages-messages conveying information on environmental matters are still presented either in English or Setswana. To situate that argument, the article briefly provides the messages presented by government organisations, companies and non-governmental organisations interested in environmental issues. The analysis revealed that the hegemony of English and Setswana prevails in the communication of information on environmental issues, even in instances where other local languages could have been utilised to effectively communicate the intended message. This article underscores the need to develop inclusive language policies which will provide for the use of the diverse African languages. It is imperative to do so, because vital indigenous knowledge, which can contribute to sustainable development, can only be best understood in the languages of the people. The current practice of overemphasising English and Setswana, within the Botswana context, denies the nation the opportunity of understanding environmental issues from diverse perspectives.
This paper discusses an oral assessment intervention in environmental education at two tertiary institutions in South Africa. A qualitative study grounded in a social constructivist framework, the inquiry locates learning and assessment of environmental education based on practical activities and first‐hand experience within the framework of situated learning, and explores processes of constructing and assessing knowledge within the learner's community of practice. The paper focuses on how communities of practice can be used as a possible learning approach in environmental education to address the diversity and challenges of classrooms, and on the efficacy of oral assessments structured to encourage thinking through dialog in such settings.
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education (Environmental Education) Thesis (M.Ed. (Education)) - Rhodes University, 2006.
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