Towards a future sustainability agenda in education?

• In Event: Has ‘sustainable development’ had its day? Interrogating and reframing the global education agenda

Proposal

Educational institutions at all levels occupy a unique position as both repositories of knowledge and potential sites of transformative action. The responsibilities borne by faculty, researchers, and other education professionals extend beyond individual contributions, shaping intellectual, institutional, and societal trajectories with long-lasting consequences. Against the backdrop of global frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Climate Agreement, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, educational institutions are increasingly called upon to critically interrogate their roles in advancing—or constraining—sustainability (Bandola-Gill et al. 2022; Faul and Welply 2021; Leal Filho et al. 2019; Stein and Andreotti 2016). This paper responds to such calls by offering a critical examination of decolonisation and contemporary coloniality, while also seeking to move beyond critique toward constructive, future-oriented engagements.

The analysis begins with an interrogation of coloniality as a persistent structuring force, rooted in historical practices of domination, exploitation, and control. Far from being consigned to the past, coloniality continues to shape knowledge production, social order, and institutional practice, influencing how we teach, research, and imagine development (Soudien & Faul, 2025). By tracing continuities between historical colonialism and present-day relations of power, this paper highlights how deeply embedded these structures remain in global education and development agendas. From this vantage, we argue that educational institutions have both the responsibility and the capacity to reframe, reimagine, and reinvent knowledge and practice towards the futures we desire, rather than those imposed through dominant paradigms. Central to this task is the potential of decolonising development and education to challenge prevailing narratives, empower marginalised communities, and create pathways towards more just and sustainable futures.

This contribution argues that three transformations are needed to de-centre Western epistemologies, cultivated and perpetuated by and in education systems, which have constrained the possibilities for alternative approaches to sustainability: systems thinking and interconnectedness; the global-local binary; and the assumptions underpinning neo-classical economics. In each domain, we explore how dominant knowledge frames not only restrict intellectual diversity but also limit the capacity of education institutions to engage meaningfully with sustainability. By challenging these assumptions, schools and universities can open space for diverse epistemologies and practices that more effectively address global challenges.

At the same time, we recognise that education institutions are under mounting pressure to reinforce, rather than disrupt, prevailing hierarchies. The proliferation of performance metrics and ranking systems (Soudien 2025; Gorur and Wijetunga, 2025), for instance, risks instrumentalising sustainability as a mechanism for competitive positioning, thereby narrowing its scope to a technocratic object of governance (Allan 2017; Corry 2013). Such tendencies risk undermining broader and more transformative understandings of education’s potential roles in sustainability, echoing the narrowing of foundational learning to literacy and numeracy at the expense of the broader aspirations of SDG 4 (Faul 2014).

Ultimately, the paper argues that forging a future-oriented sustainability agenda requires the transformation of both knowledge and knowledge systems towards thinking and teaching in systems, challenging neo-classical economics and rewiring hierarchies of power.

Authors

• Moira V Faul, NORRAG, Geneva Graduate Institute

• Oakleigh Welply