The Role of Environmental Education for Sustainable Development in Russian Universities

Abstract

This article demonstrates how education for sustainable development has been embedded in environmental education programmes in Russian universities. It outlines the key concepts of education for sustainable development that are taught to students undertaking such environmental courses. The article will be of interest to GEES academics who are looking for ideas of how to embed education for sustainable development within existing GEES programmes in the UK.

Introduction

Following the recommendations of The UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio (1992), Russia took the first steps in its transition towards sustainable development. The decree of the President of the Russian Federation (April, 1996) on the “Concept of Transition of the Russian Federation to Sustainable Development” created the basis for this process. The concept emphasised the necessity of creating a methodological and technological basis for providing the transformations required for sustainable development. However, it is clear that sustainable development cannot be achieved without fundamental changes in science and education in general, and environmental education in particular, which plays a leading and pivotal role in making such changes come about.

The Reforms in Russian Higher Education

The transformation of the economic and political system in Russia over the past decade has promoted new scientific, methodological and organisational approaches towards managing higher education. Such transformations have also played an important and influential role in highlighting the education for sustainable development agenda. For example, the market reforms in the Russian economy and society at the beginning of the 1990s allowed:

• the initiation of a new system of multi-level higher education (e.g. that includes bachelors, specialist and master of science programmes) that is characteristic of the educational system in some countries of Western Europe;

• the development of private (paid) education, alongside Russia’s public (free) governmentally supported education.

Therefore, within this relatively new system of multi-level higher education in Russia, education for sustainable development has many opportunities for developing and this has already begun (Kasimov, Malkhazova, Romanova and Chalkley, 2002).

Environmental Education in Russian HE

Environmental education at university level in modern Russia has four principal roles or spheres which are interconnected and of equal importance. These are:

• the propagation of ideas and information about environment protection, conservation and sustainability;

• the promotion of civic discourse and the methods by which the public can participate meaningfully in essential community decisions requiring sustainability knowledge;

• the development and dissemination of specialised, problem-focused knowledge and resources required to underpin the training of professionals active in environmental careers;

• the preparation of elementary and secondary teachers, university-level faculty and wider staff in the field of environmental education.

University-level environmental education in Russia is subdivided into two categories: Fundamental Environmental Education and Applied Engineering. Fundamental environmental education is delivered principally through university faculties of Geography and also through Biology, Ecology and Economics. Applied engineering environmental education is delivered mainly by technological institutes and focuses on matters such as public safety and radiation protection.

Environmental Education in Russia is based on following approaches:

The interdisciplinary approach

Russian environmental education is interdisciplinary and problem-focused and is delivered at the boundaries between the natural sciences and the social sciences. This approach is based on the fact that fundamental discipline differences can offer different and interesting insights and approaches to solving typical environmental issues such as ecological and habitat management. In addition, an interdisciplinary approach is essential in order to prepare individual students who will eventually occupy professional positions in business, industry, government and academia. Many of these positions will be dedicated to the identification and mitigation of critical environmental problems, such as air, water and soil pollution that can negatively impact on human and environmental health if not monitored and managed effectively. This inter-disciplinary approach is also directly transferable to the teaching of sustainable development education.

Multi-level federal and regional approach

The federal component of environmental education in Russian HE is compulsory and requires a basic knowledge of environmental education issues across different subjects. Education materials for delivering the federal component are developed by the Russian Council on Environmental Education. Regional educational components reflect the unique demands of local markets, and are aimed at training specialists, enabling them to solve specific and critical problems in regional and local areas concerning environment protection.

Depending on their anticipated future work, students are trained in several specialities under the regional component:

• General ecology - this involves studying the functioning of ecosystems under stress and developing mitigation management strategies;

• Geoecology - this involves studying the interaction between natural spheres and consequences of impacts of human activity;

• Nature management - This involves solving problems relating to natural resource management and sustainable development.

This three-stage inter-disciplinary and multi-level approach to environmental education can be studied at three levels, each stage being relatively independent:

• Stage One - lasts for four years and leads to a Bachelors degree.

• Stage Two - this lasts for five years and involves the training of specialists. The principal difference between Stages 1 and 2 is that the latter includes a specialist Environmental Sciences component.

• Stage Three - this involves the training of the Masters students and is complete after six years. Stage 3 also involves an independent research project.

The Development of Environmental Education for Sustainability

Environmental education is now generally accepted as the basis for teaching education for sustainable development in Russia.

Environmental education and education for sustainable development are aimed at:

• promotion of knowledge on the environment and its condition;

• providing criteria, standards and recommendations on decision-making in the area of environment protection, and providing integrated solutions with respect to social, economic and environmental issues;

• demonstrating the benefits of economic development in synergy with natural environment protection;

• promoting the importance of technology in providing support to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage;

• developing management strategies at different levels (e.g. individual or organisational in order to minimise the anthropogenic impact of environmental problems).

Along with general principles of education (scientific character, fundamentality, evolutionary nature, historicity, integrity, systematic approach, interdisciplinary character, humanism, practical orientation, etc.) the content and methods of environmental education and education for sustainable development are based on the following key principles:

• sustainability (global and local use of natural resources without a contemporaneous decrease in biodiversity and regenerative capacity);

• prevention (lack of reliable information about the environmental effects of various human activities should be taken into account at all levels of planning, and activities causing environment degradation should be avoided);

• environmental (protection of the integrity of ecosystems, carrying capacity of the biosphere, biodiversity, quality of the environment, environmental impact assessment, etc.);

• economic (illustrating the imperative of sustainable development knowledge for effective economic management:, efficient use of resources, strategic sustainable management of territories, resources and economic sectors, etc.);

• social (education in the sphere of human rights, conflict studies, safety of living, ethnography, anthropology, social and human ecology, etc.).

Of course, the real situation in delivering sustainable development education at universities in Russia is much more complex than the simple categorisation above would suggest. During the 1990s, many environmental educators in Russia realised that the steps required from ‘knowledge to attitude to action’ were often difficult and required considerable commitment from many individuals and organisations. As such, a significant amount of work still remains to be undertaken in order to embed firmly sustainable development education and action in Russian HE. We are sure that similar problems exist in UK HE as well.

Conclusion

The introduction of the modern system of environmental education for sustainable development in Russian universities requires widening international cooperation, organising special scientific, methodological and educational conferences for exchanging experiences in the delivery of such challenging agenda. We consider that the Russian-British Conference entitled ‘Environmental Education for Sustainable Development’ held in Moscow in June 2002 is one good example of such co-operation and the sharing of good practice across international boundaries.