We celebrated World Environment Day on the 5th of June 2020. To mark this day, UNESCO’s Regional Office for Southern Africa announced that the NEW website on Education for Sustainable Development for teachers and teacher educators in the Southern African region is NOW LIVE!
The portal kicks off at time UNESCO and partners are working on fostering distance education to ensure learning never stops in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
The website provides course materials, news, stories of change, policy briefs and an interactive learning space, developed under the Capacity Building Programme for Teacher Educators on Education for Sustainable Development called, “Sustainability Starts with Teachers”.
Materials on the portal include:
- Downloadable resources such as course modules and communication material;
- An eLearning library, which contains ready to use material by teachers and teacher educators covering a broad range of themes that include climate change, water, biodiversity and heritage based pedagogical support materials.
- Updated stories of Change Projects. These are institutional curriculum transformation initiatives taking place in different countries.
- An interactive platform for alumni and participants to dialogue and share ESD ideas.
“Sustainability Starts with Teachers” Capacity Building Programme aims to strengthen Education for Sustainable Development in teacher education institutions for teachers and educators from Early Childhood Care and Education, primary, secondary and Technical Vocational Education and Training.
The overall objective is to support educators to integrate ESD principles and practices into all areas of education.
The programme is implemented in 11 countries in Southern Africa. Together with national, regional and international partners, UNESCO carries out activities under this programme to integrate sustainability principles into education and training environments, with emphasis on curriculum change in Teacher Education.
It further aims at reinforcing ESD in national education and sustainable development policies and enhance capacities of teacher and TVET institutions via a regional ESD training programme. Ultimately, the programme hopes to strengthen ESD Professional Networks in Southern Africa.
The web portal was developed in partnership with Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 and will support the upcoming online Sustainability Starts with Teachers regional course to be launched in September 2020.
The portal is also a valuable regional networking platform.
If you are an alumni of any of the UNESCO courses on ESD, the SADC International Certificate Courses in Environment and Sustainability Education, International Training Programmes in Education for Sustainable Development, Regional Training Programmes in Education for Sustainable Development or the Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 Participatory Certificate Courses in Environment and Sustainability Education then please proceed to the Alumni Forum page, and SIGN UP to the regional database.
We would love to be in touch with you and welcome you to this exciting new regional platform! #sustainabilitystartswithteachers #LearningNeverStops.