Educating for sustainable development in Myanmar

• In Event: Critical encounters with sustainability

Proposal

---Overview---
The UNESCO Myanmar project “Strengthening Schools for Education for Sustainable Development” was implemented 2016-2018 to pilot the integration of education for sustainable development (ESD) into Myanmar’s current basic education curriculum. A quasi-experimental impact evaluation, complemented by key informant interviews, was undertaken throughout the project. Preliminary findings indicate positive but non-significant increases in knowledge and attitudes for ESD among the 400 teachers in the treatment group, measured against a comparison group at baseline and endline. The project was implemented in a low-resource environment in which basic education schools have few learning materials beyond the textbook and teachers use rote memorization as their primary pedagogy. In this context, the project embedded ESD into the current curriculum through simple teaching materials and conducted workshops to facilitate learning communities and whole-school approaches following initial training. The paper presents findings on how to effectively embed ESD into an already-developed curriculum and adapt learning objectives often set for economies with higher levels of consumption, and seeks further advice on professional development for teachers with little training, to be able to use transformative pedagogy and critical inquiry required for ESD.
---UNESCO Approach to ESD---
UNESCO is the UN-designated lead agency for education for sustainable development (ESD). ESD recognizes the key role of education in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals; the aim is for education to empower individuals to reflect on their own actions, taking into account their current and future social, cultural, economic and environmental impacts, from a local and global perspective. (UNESCO, “Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives”, 2017) UNESCO’s recommended approach to ESD follows two key principles: 1) ESD is integral to all aspects of quality education and training, and thus should follow a multidisciplinary and whole-institution approach, and 2) ESD requires transformative action and a pedagogy that enables transformative learning, which must include experiential and socioemotional learning, as well as critical inquiry. (UNESCO, “Textbooks for Sustainable Development: A Guide to Embedding”, 2017; UNESCO, “Issues and Trends in Education for Sustainable Development”, 2018)
---ESD in Myanmar---
Myanmar’s education sector is undergoing wholescale reform guided by the 2015 Amended National Education Law, in which two of the seven national education objectives are to nurture learners who uphold ethic and civic principles, democratic practices and human rights standards [Section 3(b)], and who protect the natural environment and principles of sustainable development [Section 3(c)]. The National Education Strategic Plan 2016-2021 emphasizes the centrality of education to achieving sustainable development, and promotes 21st century skills as a means to achieve education for the development of the country.
However, schools in Myanmar have been underfunded for decades and have little access to resources and training opportunities. Teachers demonstrate high levels of commitment and care in educating, but must often teach in poor conditions with little access to professional development. The need to educate for sustainable development is well recognized in Myanmar’s policy documents, but there are significant challenges to putting it into practice.
---Project Description---
The project “Strengthening Schools for Education for Sustainable Development” piloted the use of ESD in Myanmar. Myanmar basic education curriculum is rich in content but has limited relevance to students and little opportunity to engage in critical thinking or build competencies for achieving national education objectives for democratic practices and protection of natural environment. With private funding, the UNESCO Myanmar Project Office worked with the Myanmar Ministry of Education and a local NGO to develop teaching materials, trainings, and follow-up workshops for 400 teachers to integrate ESD, including more real-world examples of sustainability and activities for critical thinking, into their existing lessons for Grades 2-10. A corps of model teachers for ESD completed a training of trainers and were supported to lead the teacher training and to facilitate learning communities for ESD in follow-up workshops. Schools were also supported to conduct community activities aligned to ESD, according to their own assessment of community needs.
---Evidence of Impact---
Impact of the project was assessed through a quasi-experimental impact evaluation. Scales to measure knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to ESD and teaching practices were adapted from several prior studies (Michalos, Creech, McDonald & Hatch-Kahlke, 2009; Olsson, 2016; Supovitz, 2003) and used at baseline and endline among the treatment and comparison groups, totaling 800 teachers. Preliminary findings indicate positive results in the treatment group, but the evaluation may not be sufficiently powered to realize statistical significance with school-level clustering. Qualitative data collection occurred through key informant interviews for treatment teachers at each stage, including at training and each follow-up workshop. Preliminary analysis indicates teachers articulated a richer understanding of education for sustainable development but were not able to adopt transformative pedagogy within the timeframe of the project.
---Key Learning and Questions---
The project provides findings about integrating ESD into already-existing curriculum and attempting to shift pedagogy in low-resource environments, applicable to both Myanmar and similar contexts globally. The need for ESD is urgent, but complete curriculum reform generally is not immediately feasible. Therefore, the project developed teaching materials to re-orient textbook content so that core subjects also teach competencies needed for sustainability (according to UNESCO, “Textbooks for Sustainable Development: A Guide to Embedding”, 2017). These teaching materials provided opportunities to integrate knowledge, skills and attitudes differentiated for teachers’ abilities; with support to integrate into lessons plans, teachers used higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy and increased discussions of sustainability dimensions. Qualitative evidence indicates that ESD also improved relevance of the curriculum for both teachers and students. However, teachers did not progress to transformative pedagogy necessary for true behavioral change.
Questions following this project include: What modality of professional development best facilitates a shift to transformative pedagogy? Is it possible to shift directly to transformative pedagogy from teacher-centered practice, and if not, what are the intermediary steps? Do the scales used to measure impact in current literature and this project meaningfully capture improved competencies for ESD, and can they be used comparatively across different contexts? What are the implications for measuring progress towards SDG 4, Target 7?

Authors

• Nicole Starkey, UNESCO

• Nwe Ni Win, UNESCO

• Emily De, UNESCO