Transcript MESA UNIVERSITY PROGRAMME Situating innovations in African Culture, Epistemology and Context. Presentation prepared for the Educate the Educators ESD Innovation Course (UNEP/SADC-REEP ) Kenya School of.

MESA UNIVERSITY PROGRAMME
Situating innovations in African Culture,
Epistemology and Context.
Presentation prepared for the Educate the
Educators ESD Innovation Course
(UNEP/SADC-REEP )
Kenya School of Monetary Studies,
Nairobi-Kenya 4-9 May 2006
By
Dorcas Beryl Otieno (PhD)
Paper Outline
Perspectives and Premises for Sustainability in
Higher Education (SHE)
UNESCO on Contextualising ESD
African and Country ESD strategies
•Guidelines for reorienting education
/developing ESD innovations
Institutional Capacity Building
Introduction
Perspectives and Premises for Sustainability
in Higher Education (SHE)
Scholars have developed premises for SHE
including the following:
•Deep questioning”. Consideration of “vital
needs” the principle of “universibility” and the
concept of beautiful action” as tools that can
inspire a sustainability mission for higher
education. Glasser, H. (2004 ).
•University education must embark upon a
discussion of transformative vision if we are to
have an education that holds the core values of
sustainability.
•Sustainability is a result of processes such as
conflict resolution, negotiated agreement, social
learning, distributed cognition, alleviating social
dilemmas, building social capital, collective
decision making and concerted action. Roling, N.
(2004).
•Whole systems design theory and practice which
maximize stakeholders’ involvement in
management, engagement in core values and
assessment of organizational change, lend
themselves well to moving higher education
towards sustainability. Pittman, J. (2004).
•UNESCOs International implementation scheme
for ESD 2004-2014 recognizes that Education for
Sustainable Development carries with it the
inherent idea of implementing programs that are
locally relevant and culturally appropriate.
•All sustainable development programs including
ESD must take into consideration the local
environmental, economic, and societal conditions.
According to the Working paper for AfricaUNESCO-Nairobi
clusster
countries
contextualization for Africa needs should consider
the following key issues which are linked to the
implementation of NEPAD, EFA &MDGs.
 Society, environment, economy
 Environmental protection and management:
Biodiversity, fragile ecosystems
 Educational systems and trends (formal, nonformal, informal)
•Knowledge systems: Development of indigenous
knowledge systems e.g. local religions, traditional
foods, knowledge for biodiversity conservation;
integration of the local knowledge with the other
knowledge systems, sustainable usage of
biodiversity.

Skills
development,
sustainable
entrepreneurship, livelihoods and markets
 Strong relationship between natural resource
base and livelihoods

 Local context: Existing policies, economic,
social,
political
conditions,
corruption,
intergenerational equity, ethnicity, governance,
debts.
• Cross-cutting issues and themes: Human
rights, gender equity, literacies, intellectual
property rights, ecosystems approach, partnership
(colonial legacy) etc. Culture: promotion and
development of local religions, values,
 Poverty: (identification of root causes)
 Health: Integration of the traditional
medicines and the ‘modern medicine’;
development of effective medical institutions to
curb potential pandemics
 sustainable livelihoods.
•Engagement of leaders and stakeholders:
Chiefs, political leaders, religious leaders,civil
society and the informal sector
 Information and awareness: Use of
information, communication technologies
•effective traditional communication strategies
(e.g. places of worship)
• The Millennium Development goals are seen as
the core of development, therefore implying that
learning should be reoriented to be life-long and
equip learners with skills to lead to sustainable
development.
•Ref ESD strategy for Africa and respective country
strategies.
Guidelines for reorienting education /developing
ESD innovations
•Locally relevant and culturally appropriate
•Based on local needs perceptions and conditions
•Engage formal, non formal and informal education
•A lifelong endeavor
•Accommodate the evolving nature of the concept
of sustainability
•Addresse content, context, pedagogy, global
issues and local priorities
•Deal with the well-being of all the three realms
of sustainability – environment, society and
economy.
Ministerial and national level involvement
need to:
•Create policy to support ESD
•Develop professional development ESD related
programmes
•Develop strong national co-ordination team
•work with national publishers and textbook
committees to infuse sustainability into books.
•Involve community and regional/provincial in
addressing local sustainability issues to bring
relevancy to the curriculum and contribute to
deeper understanding of the complex issues and
its impact on the community.
•make use of community resources to teach about
sustainability
•work on projects that are relevant community
well-being.
Institutional Capacity Building
Changes within Universities
In order for universities to effectively implement
ESD innovations in management, learning,
research and community service ,some changes
may need to be effected These may include:
Changes across the Universities
•Visionary Leadership, Universities need a
localised strategy for mainstreaming ESD with
clear mission, vision and objectives
•Develop ESD criteria for the Universities
•reorient education as a viable avenue for research
•Initiate Interdisciplinary courses in sustainability
degree requirements across disciplinary schools
•create a sustainable-campus policy and conduct
highly visible events that reinforce campus efforts to
implement that policy
Changes within Schools/Faculties
Institutionalise ESD processes and projects for
continuity inspite frequent changes in the school or
administration and funding.
Changes related to teaching/training
ESD must focus on African communities and how
they engage in development processes and interact
with their local environment.
Practice and support towards this may include the
following:
•Develop specialized programmes on ESD and
interdisciplinary coursework on sustainability
•Demonstrate learning techniques that foster higherorder thinking skills, support decision making and
involve participatory learning
•Identify topics themes and projects linked to local
sustainability issues
•Promote understanding of local, indigenous and
global sustainability in order to encourage critical
thinking and decision making that influence
•Place graduates who have completed courses in
ESD in key institutions and ministerial positions to
help influence and bring about change
•Funding and resources mobilization and
partnerships is required to initiate and
institutionalize ESD programmes
•Universities should work with ministries of
education to redirect existing funding to address
ESD; seek new funding through grants, and
research; and collaborate with NGOs and
environmental, business and social foundations.
Evaluation
•universities should develop an evaluation tool
for monitoring school and faculty efforts to
reorient education to address sustainability
issues
•Increased research on quality teaching and
learning approaches for ESD
•Research on assessment standards and measure
of performance for ESD
There is need to develop cross institutional
sustainability assessment toolkit to enhance strategic
planning while ensuring that specific tools are
contextualised to address local needs.
Some of the Global tools which can be localised
include:
•Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire
•Auditing Instrument for Sustainability in Higher
Education
• Greening Campuses
•Campus Ecology
Thank you.