Education International Research
ESD is generally understood too narrowly; political and cultural barriers can lead to neglecting parts of Target 4.7 SDG 4.7 is controversial. Although all UN member states have agreed to the target, many do not seem to fully support all aspects of the target and are picking and choosing parts of the target according to their cultural or political preferences, outlooks or ideologies. Some governments appear to prefer gender inequality, opting to exclude gender equality from classrooms, whilst others, denying the climate crisis, neglect to mainstream climate change. Unsurprisingly, authoritarian countries are not always so keen to include democracy and human rights in national curricula, whilst some countries prefer curricula that prioritise nationbuilding over promoting peace. Some parts of the target have been widely sidelined. Globally, little action has been taken to mainstream human rights education across the world. Although the 1974 UNESCO Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Cooperation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has been around for a long time,149 in 2016, only 28 countries submitted their national reports to UNESCO, and only seven indicated that they had integrated human rights into pre-service teacher education. Some countries have narrowed the target, emphasising and investing in just one aspect of it. In South Korea, the government has made expansion of GCED a key priority, but according to KTU,150 this has come at the expense of implementing other parts of the target.
ESD is widely neglected in favour of literacy and numeracy In both the Global South and Global North, many countries still view ESD as secondary to and less important than the “core” curriculum (literacy, numeracy and so-called “traditional” subjects). In the UK, the government used to support schools in embedding “big ideas” including sustainability and global citizenship into the curriculum, but it has now reformed the curriculum to focus on “essential knowledge”. Governments in low-income countries are often encouraged by international partners and donors to focus on a narrow curriculum as resultsbased financing, which focuses on learning outcomes determined by examinations on testable subjects, becomes more common. Global privatisation and commercialisation of education increases competition between schools and encourages a narrow focus on examination results in core subjects. According to education unions in Latin America151, international organisations “want teachers to provide companies with a workforce that is capable of solving mathematical problems and reading instructions, but they reject the exposure of our students to critical thinking…The privatisation vision wants to deprive public education of its transforming nature and requires teachers to work according to a minimal and poor curriculum”. Educators are concerned that the global architecture for monitoring the SDGs may also be contributing to an over-focus on numeracy and literacy and subsequent sidelining of ESD, as global efforts to report on Target 4.1 have overshadowed Target 4.7.
GRO.EI-IE
ESD is insufficiently mainstreamed in education systems Some educators point out that their governments have paid lip service to the multiple components of Target 4.7 but have yet to take any action to ensure their timely implementation. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, educators’ experience is that “these themes are simply slogans”. The graph below illustrates that education unions found ESD to be insufficiently included in national policies, curricula, teacher education and student assessment (the four components of the global indicator152) particularly in student assessment and teacher education.
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149 UNESCO. 1974. Recommendation concerning Education for International Understanding, Co-operation and Peace and Education relating to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Retrieved from: http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13088&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html 150 Korean Teachers’ and Education Workers’ Union 151 As stated in the 2019 EI Latin America Conference declaration: Internacional de la Educación América Latina. 2019. Declaración de la XII Conferencia Regional de la Internacional de la Educación América Latina. 27 April 2019. Retrieved from: https://ei-ie-al.org/sites/default/files/docs/declaracion_xii_conferencia_ regional_ieal_0.pdf 152 4.7.1 Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development, including gender equality and human rights, are mainstreamed at all levels in: (a) national education policies, (b) curricula, (c) teacher education and (d) student assessment
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