“More than scaling up”: a critical and practical inquiry into operationalizing sustainability competencies

Abstract

This chapter starts from the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) Final Report’s call that in Higher Education, ‘more than scaling up of good practice’ and ‘greater attention to systemic approaches to curriculum change and capacity building for leaders will be needed’ (UNESCO 2014a, p. 31). It recognises this need and the additional, rather profound reform and transformation of educational policy and practice that is required to meet the heightened expectations of education in an increasingly volatile, conflict laden, and challenging world. The emphasis is on clarification and framing of work to date and identification of relevant research gaps. In particular, it addresses the current status of the literature on competencies in ESD, which is characterised by a sea of labels, terminological confusion, and relative inattention to pedaogogic implications. The research outlined is both a critical inquiry into the status of work to date on sustainability competencies and a practical inquiry into the possibility of innovative and transformative institutional strategies and pedagogies around a suite of specific competencies. To this end, the early stages of an international and cross-institutional pilot project collaboration designed to help realize the UN’s ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and UNESCO’s Global Action Plan (GAP) (UNESCO 2014b), is described briefly