Towards transformative and emancipatory pedagogies

The policy paper emphasizes the need for transformative and emancipatory pedagogies to equip teachers with effective tools to address environmental challenges and empower students for sustainable action. It highlights the importance of diverse, adaptable teaching methods to suit various educational contexts and student demographics. The focus is on fostering sustainability competencies through action-oriented, learner-centred approaches that inspire pro-environmental behaviour and active citizenship.

Key approaches include collaborative real-world projects, vision-building exercises, and complex systems analysis to engage students in sustainability. Despite the benefits, educators face obstacles such as limited resources, inadequate community engagement networks, and lack of technical support. Teachers also struggle with unresponsive bureaucracies, as illustrated by real-world experiences in facilitating environmental monitoring projects.

To overcome these barriers, the paper recommends supporting environmental education ecosystems by linking schools with research organisations and providing blueprints for community-oriented learning. Additional measures include funding for knowledge exchange programmes to spread best practices in sustainability education and creating hands-on opportunities that connect learning to tangible community issues.