The reports from 75 UNESCO Member States who participated in the consultation (2017-2020) evaluating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Global Citizenship Education (GCED) mainstreaming in their education laws/policies, curricula, teacher education, and student assessment have been synthesised and published.
The findings also include the results for the global indicator for monitoring progress towards SDG4.7; The indicator measures the extent to which ESD and GCED are mainstreamed in education policies, curricula, teacher education and student assessment and is available for 69 countries.
In a nushell:
- Nearly all countries reported that ESD and GCED are reflected in national education laws and policies, curricula, teacher education and student assessment.
- ESD and GCED are considerably less likely to be reflected in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) or in adult education.
- Themes related to “learning to live together” are more often reflected in laws and policies than those related to “learning to live sustainably”.
- Climate change education and sustainable consumption and production are less often reflected in curricula and teacher education respectively than other themes.
- ESD and GCED are most likely to be reflected in primary and secondary education and least likely in pre-primary education.
- In primary and secondary education, themes related to learning to live together are most often taught in social science, ethics and civics; while the ones related to learning to live sustainably are most often taught in science, social science, geography and civics.
- Countries report that training in ESD and GCED is available to teachers.
- ESD and GCED are generally covered in teacher training and student assessments, though the testing of values, attitudes and behaviours is less common than of knowledge and skills.
- Government support for research in ESD and GCED is limited.