Curriculum Greening Initiatives: Faculty Perspectives in Teacher Education Program at Universiti

Curriculum Greening Initiatives: Faculty Perspectives in Teacher Education Program at Universiti Sains Malaysia

By

Sharifah Norhaidah Syed Idros

Abdul Rashid Mohamad

School of Educational Studies

Universiti Sains Malaysia

Abstract

Internationally we are now in the second year of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and locally, Universiti Sains Malaysia has been appointed as a Regional Centre of Expertise (for Sustainable Development) in 2005. Both of these events have recast the School of Educational Studies to play an integral role in furthering the sustainability agenda when compelled to realign herself to these visions. Assuming a fledging organization regarding sustainability, a baseline survey was conducted to elicit viewpoints from faculty members regarding factors that might facilitate or inhibit moves and incentives to incorporate sustainability issues at both personal and institutional level. It is our contention that in order to institutionalize education for sustainability in the Teacher Education program these inhibitors and drivers need to be acknowledged and addressed before a more sensitive curriculum can be charted out.

Introduction

The debate and heightened calls for concern regarding the deteriorating biophysical state of the planet had its seeds in the early 1960s and 1970s with the green movement but the term ‘education for sustainable development’ or sometimes termed as ‘education for sustainability’ emerged primarily from the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also known as the Rio Summit or Earth Summit. From then on it gained its foothold among educational reformers and initiatives taken had been in the form of greening campuses, greening the curriculum, having an energy policy and raising awareness amongst campus communities to name a few. (In this paper ‘education for sustainable development’ may sometimes be referred to as ‘education for sustainability’).

This concept knowned as education for sustainable development while still holding an environmental foundation was broadened to include the social and economic dimensions of sustainability (Calder & Clugston, 2003). The often quoted Agenda 21, of the Rio Declaration which provides a comprehensive guideline of actions to assist governments and institutions towards sustainability policies and programs Agenda 21 was signed by world leaders representing 98% of the global population (Nebel & Wright, 2000) and Malaysia has her own Local Agenda 21. Chapter 36 of Agenda 21which is devoted to ‘Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training’ states that:

“Education including formal education, public awareness and training should be recognised as a process by which human beings and societies can reach their fullest potential. Education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address environment and development issues.”

(UNCED, 1992)

Just prior to the Rio Summit in 1990, The Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future convened to create The Talloires Declaration which is a 10-point action plan to combat “ environmental degradation caused by inequitable and unsustainable production and consumption patterns that aggravate poverty in many regions of the world”. To date this Declaration has over 320 Signatories from universities and colleges around the globe affirming the moral obligation of higher education to work for a sustainable future. Since then, other Declarations such as Halifax, Kyoto, COPERNICUS, Ubuntu, Luneburg and Swansea have emerged, all aligned with a vision of an institutional culture of sustainability (Calder & Clugston, 2003). The recent United Nations declaration for establishing the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD, 2005-2014) is further proof of the central role that education has to take to push for the sustainability agenda.

With those developments occurring on the international educational scene and this being compounded with Universiti Sains Malaysia identified as a Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) on ESD, The School of Educational Studies (SES) was caused to rethink and redesign the teacher education curriculum in order to embrace this vision. The creation of RCEs around the world is part of the Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership’s (GHESP) action plan to accelerate the transition toward sustainability in higher education. GHESP was formed in 2000 in part to further the implementation of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 (Calder & Clugston, 2003). The Institute of Advanced Studies at United Nations University is coordinating the development of all the RCEs. In addition to this, USM has identified SES to be the lead agency in promoting this agenda for other academic Schools to emulate in the form of institutionalizing the sustainability efforts in Higher Education.

Teaching & Learning for Sustainability at USM

Institutionalizing ESD into the Teacher Education program at The School of Educational Studies (SES), would be part and parcel of the aspiration of USM’s concept of “University in a Garden” towards a sustainable university. Fien (2001) argues that to stimulate efforts towards a reorientation of education towards sustainability does not really require great financial or other resources but political will. In this respect then, SES cannot be said to be at ground zero for the Vice Chancellor of USM (Prof. Datuk Dzulkifli Abdul Razak) is a passionate and dedicated champion for ESD. The activities of USM’s RCE is to create network of actors, learning spaces, cooperatives and joint efforts to operationalise the objectives of Education for a Sustainable Development. The University’s model is also one of “bringing the inside out” i.e. the bringing and learning together of the internal expertise and the community for the benefit of the external populace (Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, 2006).

The Creation of CETREE or Centre for Education and Training for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency based at the School of Physics is a prime example of several experts from various disciplines dedicated to the promotion of using alternative sources of energy to stem the excessive use of fossil fuels which is the root of many political tensions.

In order to align herself with the goals of the university and the international calls for education for sustainability, SES carried out several surveys to gather baseline data before a genuine endeavor to map and chart out a more sensitive curriculum can be envisioned. Knowledge, attitudes and environmental behaviors (Sharifah, 2006) as well as other parameters of both pre and in-service student teachers were obtained and analyzed, the data coming in from in-service teachers providing glimpses of actual teacher practice in the classrooms regarding sustainability.

Curriculum Greening Initiatives at SES: Faculty Perspectives

Central to any innovation or change from the usual practice is a sense of commitment for pragmatic or ethical reasons from the party involved. Specific information provided for by teacher educators regarding perceived barriers for incorporating ESD elements would be invaluable to guide future efforts at possible revising and redesigning the curriculum so as to be more in line with recent developments in the area of Teacher Education. This data was gathered from the academic staff of SES (N=32) by way of a survey utilizing in aprt a modified version employed by McKeown-Ice and the Environmental Literacy Assessment Consortium (1996) (in Mastrili, Johnson & McDonald, 2001). The sample accounts for 62% of the entire faculty of SES.

Figures 1 and 2 bear testimony to the fact that faculty members would only want to incorporate issues into their taught courses if it was something that they knew reasonably well enough to do. The percentage of academics incorporating ‘A little’ (71.9%) of ESD/EE into their courses reflects the number claiming to ‘Know a little’ and ‘Know’ (87.5%) about ESD/EE.

Professional development courses in the form of roundtable discussions and participatory seminars with experts and relevant Governmental agencies and Non-governmental organizations active in SD program would provide opportunities for faculty members to increase their engagement in this area. Certainly, this endeavor would seem necessary in the wake that student data show a lot of enthusiasm for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

Figure 3 below shows that faculty members use a variety of ways to incorporate issues relating to ESD and EE but ‘Discussions’ seem to be the most prevalent method used.

It is quite clear that incorporation of ESD/EE into taught courses have been limited to the usual methodologies widely used in the other educational courses as in the methods courses.

This is reflective of the natural progression of EE engagement from awareness to action

and thence to participation as evident in many international examples.

As it is there are many resources already available for immediate use in pre-service and in-service teacher courses made available on-line. An excellent example is the Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future: A multimedia teacher education program, published by UNESCO in 2004 and from the EarthWatch website that contain many good ideas for use in teaching (examples below)

Using issues in either EE or ESD as examples in their teaching or for further clarification of a situation clearly marks the most popular way of incorporating EE/ESD at both the undergraduate and postgraduate courses. This can be gauged from results shown in Figure 4.

Faculty members do not as yet engage in promoting action strategies which is a desirable outcome of learning and acting for sustainable development. This is probably due to the lack of involvement of the faculty themselves in either social/community work or even research in EE/ESD thus depriving them of actual provision for experiences which would serve as invaluable input into their teaching. As such, a majority of the faculty were still limited to only the theoretical part of EE/ESD.

Understanding perspectives from faculty involved in any Teacher Education program is an important step in overcoming perceived barriers or obstacles for the incorporation of ESD/EE into the courses (Figure 5). The 3 strongest reasons indicated were (1) ESD not relevant to my courses (31.1%), (2) insufficient knowledge (28.1%) and (3) too much of other content (28.1%).

Their perception that issues of ESD is irrelevant indicates that some of the lecturers are still confined to the ‘straight jacket’ thinking of discipline boundaries instead of utilizing integrative thinking that is informed by issues from several disciplines at once. It is worthwhile to note, that ‘Interest’ could not be seen to be a major inhibitor counting for less than 5%.

A logical flow from the analysis above could be seen in the findings as shown in Figure 6, which displays high levels of interest in the various aspects of ESD.

Only responses indicating ‘interested’ and ‘very interested’ on the questionnaire are indicated here. Faculty displayed high levels of interest in ‘environmental concern’, ‘interest in ESD’, ‘willingness to incorporate ‘ as well as to secure grants’ for research in these areas mirroring their indication that ‘interest in ESD’ was not a major inhibitor for incorporating ESD into their courses.

Following this, a large percentage of them were open towards making changes to their courses towards an interdisciplinary approach (90.6%), and felt that this approach would add value to their courses (90.6%).

On another positive note, 93.8% of the respondents agreed that education can help achieve sustainability (Figure 7). Those that responded to the survey were however less sure that their colleagues were ready to make changes (only 65.6% said ‘yes’).

The data presented revealed that faculty members are very interested and willing to incorporate EE or ESD into their courses but perhaps lack the practical know-how and efforts taken were done in an ad hoc and non-systemic manner. The findings can be put to much use by the School of Educational Studies if it now embarks on institutionalizing the effort on a whole scale. Even data from pre-service teachers show that they are ready and willing, which means that faculty should capitalize on their willingness. Sharifah and Hashimah (2006) reported that a comparable percentage of the respondents in both the sciences (94.5%) and arts (95.6%) were willing to integrate ESD issues in their teaching during their teaching practicum. This data reported on 473 pre-service teachers embarking on their teaching practicum of this year. In addition, (Abdul Rashid, Sharifah & Hashimah, 2006) reported that these pre-service teachers used the extra curricular activities as a strategic entry point for early inroads into the sustainability agenda to realize their intentions.

Road Map for Educating for Sustainability at SES

Inspired by success stories in international documents on ESD and EE and also in witnessing a whole-school approach for sustainability undertaken by Torquay Primary School while on a study-visit to Victoria, Australia, The School of Educational Studies is committed in furthering the agenda for sustainability within Teacher Education. Charting out a roadmap for its future plans is critical to ensure that its aspirations can be met with systematically and with a clear direction. In planning and designing efforts to realize an institutional operations work culture true to the spirit of sustainability, SES is not averse from learning from the works of Peter Senge (1990) who weighs great influence on the development of ‘Organization Development Theory’ that places the importance of organizational learning for change to be effective (Tilbury, Keogh, Leighton & Kent, 2005).

Findings from the academics are encouraging, meaning that professional development courses can be planned for them to get greater exposure to innovative methods for teaching sustainability and importantly how these can be embedded in the local context. It is also crucial that initiatives in greening the curriculum should be more than just a provision for enhancing consciousness and awareness constrained by learning about sustainability but in addition to this learning for sustainability which develops skills in critical reflection, systemic thinking as well as action-oriented skills for change so that students can go beyond to build capacity for instigating and managing change (Fien, 1993; Tilbury, 1995). For this initiative it has been reported that action research for curriculum change have been used widely by UNESCO and OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) projects with positive results. Action research is a collaborative research tool that encourages reflection on teaching practice and actively engages educators, students and other stakeholders in action for change towards sustainability (Tilbury, Keogh, Leighton & Kent, 2005, p. 17).