Bridging Nordic and Baltic Adult Education for Sustainable Development
Education for sustainable development (ESD) meets the challenges of modern citizenship, by that one of the dimensions of ESD is Societal transformation: which means empowering people to be ‘global citizens’ who engage and assume active roles, both locally and globally, to face and to resolve global challenges and ultimately to become proactive contributors to creating a more just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable world.
According to “Assessing the Status of Sustainable Development in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR): A Macro-Regional Perspective”, published in 2015 one recommendation is to establish regional platforms in the BSR for mutual learning, and another is to facilitate sustainable development cooperation for responding coherently in relation to the global goals for sustainable development (Grönholm et al., 2015).
Adult education has a central role for sustainable development because adults further educate leaders for all labor markets. Partners from Nordic countries and the Baltic region are now exploring how to enhance education for sustainable development in the Baltic Region inspired by a Nordic Adult Education in ESD. Our partnership is supported with funds from Nordplus Adult.
We as partners are representing different sectors in adult education and are: SYKLI Environmental School of Finland, PS Paaby Prosess — EDUACTION from Norway, University of Tartu from Estonia, Siksali Development Centre from Estonia, RISEBA Carrier Centre from Latvia and BITE Adult Education Centre Lithuania.
Inspiration from an innovative Nordic course in further adult education
Since 2006 the Nordic Network for Adult Learning (NVL) has had ESD on the agenda. A Nordic cross-sectorial group has discussed what kind of approach is necessary to get changes in our mindsets and behavior. The result is the development of a Nordic cross-sectorial, post-qualifying education which the Nordic Council of Ministers decided to support as one of several projects under the program “Green Growth the Nordic Way” during the academic years 2014–2015 and 2016 (Nordic Council of Ministers, 2015).
The course emphasizes learning geared towards action competence, an approach involving a high level of knowledge combined with practical action (Mogensen and Schnack, 2010). The target group is pedagogues engaged in sustainable development and adult learning.
We found that learning geared towards theoretical knowledge combined with practical action is a way to educate for sustainable development. Building bridges among formal education institutions, local administrations and civil society organizations in a transdisciplinary fashion has engendered a sense of collective efficacy, reinforced by the inspiring local examples. The added value of this multinational course compared to a national one is that the participants work across cultures, and benefit from practical and pedagogical examples from different regions, as evidenced by student testimony. The course is also an important part of the Nordic sustainable development strategy.
Based on our experience from the realized courses and the evaluation we are now planning to realize a course in the Baltic countries. We are starting by collecting a network of interested stakeholders in enhancing an adult ESD in the region. We are finding potential participants of such a network and interesting cases from the region, of how sustainable development can be enhanced. http://prezi.com/pkgrgmj-cpvk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
We had our first physical project meeting in Copenhagen the 10th — 12th of October 2017. In addition to the exchange of stories and experiences, mapping of networks and best practices were the core activities of the meeting. We successfully combined the project meeting with an exiting event arranged the 12th of October by the NVL Network for Education for Sustainable Development, the group that developed the Nordic Adult Education for ESD. To join this gave the optimal opportunity to meet Nordic Adult Educators in the Nordic Countries. For more information about the activities and outcome of this event, follow the blogg “Nordisk Baerekraft”.
The next step in our work we will be the seminar in Vilnius the 18th of January with the theme “Enhancing Education for Sustainable Development in the Baltic Region.” So far 40 participant registered representing adult educators from different sectors and from both the Nordic and Baltic countries in addition to some participants from Poland, Germany, Ukraine. This is exiting.
Follow us on this blogg. More news will follow after the seminar.
Links and References:
- Grönholm, S., Rydén, L., Zuin, O., Elrick-Barr, C., Powell, N., 2015.
- Assessing the Status of Sustainable Development in the Baltic Sea Region: A Macro-regional Perspective. A report to the CBSS — Baltic 21 by the Baltic University Programme
- Mogensen, F., Schnack, K., 2010. The action competence approach and the ‘new’ discourses on education for sustainable development, competence and quality criteria. Environmental Education Research, 16(1), 59–74.
- Nordic Council of Ministers, 2015. “Green Growth the Nordic Way”, Retrieved February 9, 2015, from http://www.norden.org/en/theme/green-growth
Wilson Caitlin (editor), Holm Tove, Paaby Kirsten, Sannum Miriam, Stavlund Ellen (NVL 2016): “The New Nordic Education for Sustainability. Inspiration form an innovative course in further adult education”
Examples of Education for Sustainable Development in the Nordic Countries — students´ projects from Course 1 (2014–2015)
Examples of Education for Sustainable Development in the Nordic Countries — students´ projects from course 2 (2016)
Follow the (NVL) Nordic Network for Sustainable Development — seminars in Gothenburg and Copenhagen
