SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT THE HEART OF QUALITY EDUCATION: bringing sustainability ideals face to face with new HE realities Learning and Leading on Sustainability: the Green Skills challenge, 25 October 2011 University of Loughborough John Blewitt, Aston Business School, Aston University
Where are the tensions in trying to support innovation for sustainability in HE T&L? • Shifting conceptual ground around sustainability definitions • Different disciplinary self-perceptions of their links with sustainability • Multiple delivery pathways for ESD in HEIs - formal and informal • Research-Teaching interplay yet prioritisation of research agendas • Thematic overlaps between ESD and other organisational priorities • Need to integrate learning aims/ambitions – personal and professional • Structural challenges in creating inter-disciplinary learning opportunities (ESD: Education for Sustainable Development/EfS: Education for Sustainability)
What are the tactics needed to address ESD through the core functions of HEIs? The project sees quality assurance and enhancement as critically important for exploring ESD in organisational leadership and educational innovation The project intersects institutional and sector level changes: i) Seeking systemic change, initiating dialogue and eliciting contributions from national agencies as well as professional stakeholders and experts. ii) Seeking to connect institutional setting with sector context – changing thinking, culture and practice across five partner institutions and within the academic infrastructure in terms of QAA procedures and practices.
Future Generations
But what are the drivers for this – now the sector is in quicksand? • Are students banging at the door of higher education demanding learning that also saves the planet? • 80% of a sample of 5,763 students nationally and across subject areas think sustainability skills will be important to future employers – and 65% want to see this handled through reframing the curriculum rather than stand-alone modules. ( First-year attitudes towards, and skills in, Sustainable Development , 2011, HE Academy/NUS) • 93% of 700 organisations across different industry sectors stated their business is likely to do more in the next five years to incorporate sustainability into their strategies – this points to the need for higher level applied skills and capabilities in this area. ( Leadership Skills for a Sustainable Economy, 2010, Business In The Community/EDF Energy)
After the storm: re-imagining HE with sustainability at its heart ‘Ecology of learning’ and shifting educational paradigms – creating holistic learning environments, allowing depth as well as breadth, using engaged pedagogies and attention to learning relationships Integrative pedagogic ethos - realising human capabilities and countering disaggregated views of the person, supporting active learning relationships and space for discussion in teaching teams ‘Sustainability Literacy’ as a meta -capability across curriculum development practice and educational principles – informing the development of graduate attributes and educator competencies Enfolding sustainability issues and concerns within the emerging discourses of our academic communities of practice, to ensure credibility, relevance and connectivity of innovation in this area
Pathways for Quality Enhancement: 1. Academic Infrastructure QAA Institutional Review – new guidelines March 2011 – annual choice of thematic element (akin to ELIR in Scotland – to be addressed cross-institutionally, for commentary not judgement) - ‘issues that are attracting legitimate public interest or concern’ such as sustainability would need to be presented as a sufficiently credible in conceptualisation, and as well supported by the sector, in order to be selected QAA Subject Benchmarks – several mention sustainability issues and considerations – encouragement could be given for more widespread attention in benchmarking committees, which would also advance debate across communities of practice Underpinning definitions of Quality and Standards – rather static and passive concepts in recent academic infrastructure consultation 2010-11 – ‘management of learning opportunities’ – foundations of future T&L quality should be far more ambitious?
Business to the rescue
Pathways for Quality Enhancement: 2. Working with Business and Industry Issues are varied, complex and sometimes contradictory: • ‘Business’ generally recognises the need for green skills but does not understand what a greener economy might mean or look like. • ‘Bottom line’ & ‘business case’ mentality dominates in periods of economic recession • Professional associations vary in level and degree of commitment to sustainability (often interpreted in different ways): UG/PG programmes often built around professional/charter requirements • Partnership work essential: low carbon agenda often common ground because of its potential for quantification, monetarisation and management oversight • CPD: mosaic of focussed learning opportunities, accredited &/or non accredited, impacting positively on business and environmental performance
Pathways for Quality Enhancement: 3. Green ICT Aston has reshaped its pilot project slightly to focus more on the technological side of learning asking some key questions: Is it possible to interpret quality higher education as necessarily having to account for the carbon footprint of its activities? How can ICT help ‘green’ the delivery of the HE curriculum? How can green ICT enhance the experience of both formal and informal learning?
HE: the record?
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