Capability Development and Education for Sustainability
THINKPIECE | Patrick Longfield for TAFE NSW ICVET
Patrick Longfield is a social ecologist, with more than 37 years experience in the educational sector. He works with groups and individuals on sustainability, values systems and ethics. He is a team member of EcoSTEPS, a leading global sustainability consultancy specialising in sustainability issues. Patrick also lectures part-time on sustainability at the University of New South Wales and the Sydney Institute of TAFE NSW.
This is the second of two articles by Patrick which explore the notion of sustainability and education. Part I explored challenges around sustainability, along with offering some principles.
This thinkpiece explores some key drivers and connects Capability Development with Education for Sustainability.
“We are now training our children to live in a world that cannot be sustained” (Galbraith 1992 in Huckle and Sterling 1996). Accepting this to be the case, and tolerating the word ‘training’, we cannot continue this way. Agenda 211 Section 36.3, states: “Education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address environment and development issues.”
“The crisis we face is first and foremost one of the mind, perception and values; hence it is a challenge to those institutions presuming to shape minds, perceptions and values.”
(David Orr, 1992)
With this in mind, it is appropriate to identify four examples of key drivers for sustainability in NSW.
First, the NSW Government’s Learning for Sustainability. NSW Environmental Education Plan 2007-20102 has the vision for an “effective and integrated environmental education that builds the capacity of the people of NSW to be informed and active participants in moving society towards sustainability.”
Secondly the TAFE NSW document, TAFE NSW Education for Sustainability Action Plan 2007-2010,3 states that, “The TAFE NSW Education for Sustainability Action Plan 2007-2010 is designed to provide a framework of strategies and actions for educating for sustainability to ensure TAFE NSW meets its vision of an education and training system that underpins and improves social and economic wellbeing and sustainable development for the people of NSW”.
Thirdly the TAFE NSW Sydney Institute Action Plan 2006-20094 maintains that, “The Environmental Sustainability Action Plan 2006-2009 seeks to enable every staff in every action to minimise their environmental impact. In this way the protection of the environment for future generations is built into everything we do.”
Finally the North Coast Institute Ecological Sustainability Policy, “provides a framework for the future direction of Ecological Sustainability within our Institute. ‘Environment Plan 2002 and beyond’ provided a platform for our work towards sustainability. This policy provides a vehicle for continuous improvement, to add to our Institute’s history of achievements in this area. This policy supports our Institute’s Strategic role “to advance our region economically, socially, culturally and environmentally through excellence in vocational education services”.
While there is a high level of intent in the existence of these documents, my experience and information informs me that few resources have been allocated to progress any expectations held. It remains an ideas agenda.
These documents are designed to provide leadership and guidance to those in the organisation. An examination of their language identifies an implied or overt intent for an holistic and fluid approach to sustainability. Collectively they cover the three domains, the environment, society and the economy. And while the NSW document does infer sustainability as a destination, the others do not.
These plans then are about people, those of the present and the future. Even allowing for some incongruity however, these observations do connect them effectively with the concepts we are dealing with here, Capability Development and Education for Sustainability.
We can now look at elements of similarity within these concepts. First a recall - sustainability is about the whole of life. It is about new ways of thinking, creating and doing. Above all it is about our values and designing new futures for and with our children.
Within the limitations of this piece I would suggest the following:
- Education for Sustainability evolved from the concept of environmental education, where the agenda was learning about the environment. It is about education for change and includes process as a fundamental part of the experience, along with reflecting upon our life and learning experiences, and exploring how to integrate the outcomes into all aspects of our being. It is much more about changing how we view the world in which we live, to one where we are more in tune with its needs, and its environment. 5
- Capability Development is about the individual and the organisation, and process. It is about a learning ecology, where action comes through wisdom and the blurring of boundaries. Where the learner is seen as a whole person. ‘Capability Development underlines the value of people and the human aspect as well as reinforcing the importance of business imperatives.’ 6
Life based learning, appreciative enquiry, and capability development, all are elements of the latest thinking in the development of learning and education styles. These take education away from the once predominant pedagogy, into the realm where the learner takes considerable and increasing responsibility for their own learning. However, we are still left with many hurdles to overcome.
In considering issues around sustainability, it is necessary to take into account and consider the existence of barriers to change. Just because we are actually talking about sustainability and the opportunities that exist, does not mean the change we are looking for will happen.
In fact anecdotal evidence suggests while there are growing quantities of information and knowledge we are not actually making changes of any significance. At least one barrier I mentioned earlier, is that of the lack of resources allocated to progress the agendas outlined.
Two key papers from ICVET describing capability development, espouse the values of, and use language matching closely that of sustainability. If TAFE has a responsibility to deal with some of the issues of sustainability, it is a small leap to accept the incorporation of sustainability alongside Capability Development as an underpinning set of values into all teaching and learning. We are left though with some major challenges, one of which is around ‘skills’ and ‘training’.
TAFE, traditionally and predominantly is about skills training. Two recent (2007) publications, one from BVET7, and another from The Australian Education Union8 (AEU) demonstrate this thinking. BVET notes that “… NSW BVET had the foresight to recognise that the skills policy response to climate change would become a pressing issue,”9 while the AEU re-iterates BVET and goes on to support their position noting that, “… any solution to climate change must be a skills solution.”10
While agreeing there are many skills required that are relevant to climate change, it is a misleading and rather short-sighted position to focus only upon skills as the issue for TAFE with respect to sustainability.
Such a skills approach totally fails to address the under-pinning values implicit in any understanding of sustainability. If we are to choose a path towards a sustainable future, we will need a range of qualities of which skills are only one set.11 Such qualities as:
- Values that enable us to question dominant social, business, political and industrial paradigms.
- An attitude enabling us to adopt new ways of thinking and doing.
- A strength that will enable us to question the way we live.
- A capability to work with people from diverse backgrounds.
- A personal and organisational ethical awareness.
- Knowledge that will enable us to deal with complexity and complex systems.
- Creativity to conceive and design to satisfy new needs.
- Skills to create and build new technologies.
There remain many other issues around sustainability we can explore for ourselves, either physically, intellectually or emotionally, or for that matter all three. These may include language, resources, the readiness of society to adopt the principles and practices of sustainability and how policy informs practice or vice‑versa. Teachers as sustainability professionals may assist in this process of discovery.
In the 15th or 16th century Galileo Galilei said “You cannot teach anyone anything. You can only help them to discover”.
Little has changed since then. Education is still about learning and discovery. Both Capability Development and Education for Sustainability are about “life based learning” and discovery as a whole of life experience. Both are about making decisions as to how we view ourselves in an holistic sense, within our relationship with the planet, our home.
The new imperative though is urgency. Since we do not yet know what a sustainable future will look like, we need to create in ourselves and our learners, the capability to understand this, and the freedom to go places that are creative and challenging. It is urgent we start upon this new journey of discovery now. To realise from the beginning that it will challenge our core values, is the essential element. It is a real journey, one critical for our survival. May I wish you well.
Two day forum for TAFE NSW staff, 3rd & 4th June 2008 at The Epping Club, Sydney
References
In writing this piece I have intuitively drawn from many sources that I have read over the past few years. They are too numerous to list here. However if any reader would like a list of my books I would be happy to forward them. I have listed here only some more immediate sources I have drawn on.
Goldney D, Fien T, Kent J, (2007). Finding the common ground: Is there a place for sustainability education in VET? A National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation Programme Report. NCVER Adelaide.
Huckle and Sterling (1999). Education for Sustainability. Earthscan.
Local Agenda 21. United Nations Environment Programme. Accessed 15 August 2007
Mazzotti L, Murphy B, Kent J, (2007). Finding the common ground: Is there a place for sustainability education in VET? Support document. NCVER Adelaide.
Orr, David. 1992. Environmental Literacy: Education as if the Earth Mattered. Twelfth Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures. October 1992, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Edited by Hildegarde Hannum. accessed 7/11/2007
Staron, M; Jasinki, M; Weatherley, R 2006-2006. Life Based Learning. A strength based approach for capability development in vocational and technical education. A research project funded by the NSW Department of Education, Science and Training, and TAFE NSW.
Staron, M; Jasinki, M; Weatherley, R. 2005-2006. A Business Approach to Capability Development. Considerations and suggestions for applying life-based learning in the workplace. A companion document to the above. Managed by the TAFE NSW International Centre for VET Teaching and Learning 2005-2006. (ICVET)
Stephen Sterling (2001). Sustainable Education. Revisioning Learning and Change. Scumacher Briefings No.6.
From Here to Sustainability: The Learning Skills Council’s for Sustainable Development. September 2005. Accessed August 2007.
Skills for Sustainability February 2007. NSW BVET.
1 Agenda 21, came out of the Rio 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, The Earth Summit. It is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. The 21 refers to the 21st century. Source: http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/index.htm. Accessed 7/11/2007
2 Source: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/2006347_lfsenvedplan20072010.pdf. Accessed 7/11/2007
3 Source document may be found on Curriculum Centre Gateway, or http:esd.tafensw.edu.au/sustainability/default.htm
4 See TAFE Sydney Institute intranet: http://sitwww.tafensw.edu.au/ Source supplied 7/11/2007
5 To quote from ARIES: “The learning approaches such as mentoring, facilitation, participative inquiry, action learning and action research are ways of exploring the sustainability agenda. These approaches enable people to reflect on their experiences, learn how to make change and move forward.” See: http://www.aries.mq.edu.au/portal/about/efs.htm Accessed 7/11/2007
6 ‘A Business Approach to Capability Development’. ICVET 2006 Page 5.
7 Skills for Sustainability 2007. BVET.
8 The Australian TAFE Teacher. Vol. 41, No.2. Winter 2007. The official Journal of the TAFE Division of the Australian Education Union.
9 Skills for Sustainability 2007. op cit page 3.
11 Adapted from “Environmental Decision Making” (1998) ed Ronnie Harding.