Monitoring of education for sustainable development in Germany – insights from early childhood education, school and higher education

Abstract

In Germany, the implementation of the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on Education for sustainable development (ESD) 2015–2019 aims to implement ESD more profoundly within the structures of Germany’s educational system. In this context, a national monitoring has been set up in order to analyze the extent and quality of ESD implementation in all educational areas. The paper contains the results of an indicator-based desk research comprising a content analysis of key documents in three areas of education: early childhood education, school education and higher education over a period of 5 years (2011–2016). Overall, the main results indicate that, at the level of key documents, the goal of a broad implementation of ESD is not yet achieved, while there are considerable differences among the federal states. ESD and related concepts can be found more frequently particularly in documents that are more recent. At the same time, ESD is increasingly predominating other educational concepts such as environmental education. The results are one component of a comprehensive monitoring process of ESD-implementation on the level of documents and offer important insights relevant for further (political) activities aiming at a mainstreaming of ESD.

Keywords:

• Education for sustainable development (ESD)
• monitoring
• early childhood education
• school
• higher education

Notes

1. Since the results of the three formalized fields of education differ significantly from both the Informal and Non-Formal Learning/Youth and Local Authorities, they are not presented in this article. In addition, Vocational Education and Training is left out because it is not considered compatible due to the unique structure of this educational field (strong cooperation between the state and the training companies).

2. Educational standards are outcome-related standards which have a binding character for the respective countries and aim to improve competencies. They represent a reference system for the professionalism of teachers and are a crucial tool in ensuring and enhancing the quality of school education (see Klieme et al. 2003, p. 19).

3. Due to the practicalities of the research, the analysis could not cover all subjects. The criteria for the selection of the subjects were a combination of ESD-oriented subjects (geography, biology and general studies for elementary school) according to the amount of time the subjects occupy and their status as the main respective compulsory subject (German, English), and subjects which also contribute to the implementation of the comprehensive ESD concept (economy, ethics, chemistry).

4. The documents from Baden-Württemberg were the only complete set of previous educational plans that were available until the deadline of March 31st 2017.