Moving from the Edge to the Centre; the Role of Zimbabwe Higher Education in Achieving Education for Sustainable Development: Addressing the Quality Imperative
Author : Ruvengo Leonard, Chingozha Misheck P, Shava George N, Mkwelie Nhlahla, Gwebu Ntandoyenkosi, Manokore Kudakwashe and Muzari Tapiwa
Abstract :
The need for sustainable development and societal transformation is gaining more and more relevance. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) competes for curriculum and policy space in higher education and particularly in Teacher Education (TE). Education plays a key role in promoting sustainable development and developing people’s capacity to address environmental and developmental problems. In Zimbabwe and the entire African continent, National Higher Education (HE) policies are increasingly regulated by international agendas like the Agenda 2030 Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SD). To put such policies into practice, teachers and teacher education must include them into their practices. Considering that education has a crucial role in active and critical citizens’ development, teachers and teacher education must be prepared to integrate in their actions the importance of the SD agenda. Teacher education and initial teacher education (ITE) must include in their training and the preparation of future teachers to deal with quality and sustainability challenges. TE should take explicit strategies on board to promote the development of professionals with competencies that educate responsible citizens, in as far as SD is concerned. The main aims of the study are
i) To establish how teacher education in Zimbabwe includes SD.
ii) Analyse the challenges of implementing agenda 2030 in teacher education.
iii) Suggest ways to improve SD, particularly focusing on quality in teacher education.
Based on the review of literature, this article suggests that there is need for teacher education to strategically adopt policies and strategies by integrating into policy, curriculum and practice in alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the overall mandate of the Global Agenda for SD.
Keywords :
Curriculum, higher education, sustainable development goals (SDGs), policy, teacher education
