CONCEPT PAPER
The Sub-Regional Workshop “Sustainability Begins with Teachers in Central Asia”
Date:
Duration:
Venue:
June 19-23, 2017
5 days
Hotel “Holiday Inn”, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Background:
In September 2015, the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a global Agenda
aiming to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. In particular, SDG4 reflects a new
global vision for quality education.”1 According to one of the agreed SDG4 education targets (target 4.7), the
learners should “acquire the knowledge and skills needed … for sustainable development and sustainable
lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship
and appreciation of cultural diversity….” Consequently, teaching education for sustainable development
(ESD) and education for global citizenship (GCED) across all education levels is the key to achieving the goal
on education and other SDGs. To do this, there is a strong need for the 21st century skills development with
a link to a labour market.
The ESD and GCED aim to equip learners with the following core competencies which are essential to live
and work in the 21st century:
(a) Cognitive capacities including a good knowledge of global issues and universal values such as justice,
equality, dignity and respect and the skills to think critically, systemically and creatively, including
adopting a multi-perspective approach that recognizes different dimensions, perspectives and angles of
issues;
(b) Non-cognitive skills including social skills such as empathy and conflict resolution, and communicative
skills and aptitudes for networking and interacting with people of different backgrounds, origins,
cultures and perspectives; and
(c) Behavioral capacities to act collaboratively and responsibly, and to strive for collective good2.
In order to develop the 21st century competences, it is important to build proper synergies between teacher
training and education policy, curriculum and innovative approaches at school level.
1
United Nations. Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
2(UNESCO. 2013. Outcome document of the Technical Consultation on Global Citizenship Education: Global Citizenship Education –
An Emerging Perspective
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The Global Action Programme’s (GAP) on ESD led by UNESCO aims to generate and scale up action at all
levels and areas of education and learning to accelerate the progress towards sustainable development. 3
GAP has five Priority Action Areas to allow for strategic focus and partnerships:
1) advancing policy;
2) enhancing learning and training environments;
3) building capacities of educators and trainers;
4) empowering and mobilizing youth; and
5) accelerating sustainable solutions at local level.
As the lead agency for ESD, UNESCO designed the initiative for coordinating and implementing the GAP,
funded by the Government of Japan. The specific project Sustainability Begins with Teachers focuses on the
GAP Priority Action Area 3, and is implemented in Southern Africa, Central Asia and South East Asia.
Central Asian countries, with the support from UNESCO, the Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia
(CAREC) and other international partners are currently involved in the implementation of the SDG4, including
mainstreaming SDG4 into their education legislations and strategies.
In this context, the project in Central Asia will build the capacities of selected universities and institutions
providing teacher education - teacher education institutions (TEIs) to design and implement change
processes on sustainable development in their institutions. Educators and trainers are powerful agents of
change who can deliver the educational response to advance sustainable development, but first they must
acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values to enable the transition to a sustainable society.
It is expected that the exercise will also contribute to the formulation of a regional approach and national
strategies and methodology in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for the implementation of
ESD and GCED to achieve the SDG4 across the region.
As part of this project, UNESCO Cluster Office in Almaty, in cooperation with the UNESCO Asia-Pacific
Regional Office in Bangkok, the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU)
and CAREC, with the financial support from the Government of Japan, will organize the first sub-regional
workshop for TEIs on mainstreaming education for sustainable development and global citizenship, including
methods and principles into their programmes and institutions and development of institutional action plans
for ESD and GCED in Almaty, Kazakhstan on 19-23 June 2017. This workshop will build upon the outcomes of
the two workshops to promote GCED in Central Asia organized by UNESCO Almaty and APCEIU since 2015.
Furthermore, it is expected that during the second Central Asian workshop to be held in early 2018 in
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the participants will update each other on the progress of the “Change project”
implementation.
3
In November 2014, the UNESCO World Conference on ESD in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, launched the GAP to build on the
achievements of the United Nations Decade of ESD and create new momentum for action:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002243/224368e.pdf#page=4
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The objectives of the first workshop:
 Enhance awareness and understanding of sustainable development and global citizenship
education among the education stakeholders at national and provincial/ area level for
implementation of the SDG4 (target 4.7);
 Empower TEIs to mainstream ESD content, methods and principles into their programmes and
institutions;
 Support TEIs in the development of their action plans for change in the end of the workshop,
particularly:
- Support TEIs in becoming centres that develop the relevant knowledge, skills and values to
enable learners to contribute to sustainable societies;
- Ultimately, increase the number of teachers qualified to introduce ESD content, methods and
principles into their teaching and institutions; and
- Identify key policy alternatives for promotion of inclusion and diversity, pedagogy for resilience,
and supportive school environment, identifying students at risk and building partnerships.
The target groups of the workshop:
The first training workshop targets heads, deans and educators of selected teacher education institutions to
support them in integrating ESD and GCED concepts and principles in their institution’s curriculum and
teaching and learning practices. The representatives of the Ministries of Education are also invited to
integrate ESD & GCED into their teacher education policy. The first two days of the workshop will include the
participation of the Ministries’ of Education officials; remaining three days of workshop will be technical for
TEIs on how to lead the change process.
The target audience will include the following:
 Representatives of ministries of Education from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
– one person from each country and total four persons (for the first and second days of the
workshop);
 Forty-eight representatives from teacher education institutions (3 persons from each participating
TEIs from 4 TEIs per country);
 International Central Asian group of experts in ESD;
 Academics, think tanks and leading policy analysts;
 Representatives of UNESCO, international experts from APCEIU, and CAREC
In total, about 60 participants are expected at the workshop.
TEIs, teacher educators and teachers have a wide-ranging influence on policy and practice in education and
development, and hold key responsibilities for delivery of quality education at all levels. ESD and GCED in
teacher education should help reorient the community of practice, revisit the priorities of the programmers
and rethink the methods to make education relevant and responsive to today’s global challenges. TEIs
participating in the capacity-building sessions will be encouraged to develop follow-up plans to integrate ESD
and GCED into their institution’s training.
The trained institutions will make a commitment to extend the training to other teacher education
institutions from the same country or region.
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Preparatory Work
 Each TEI will review reference materials provided for the meeting and select key sustainability issues in
the community (e.g., climate change, water resources, global citizenship, etc.);
 Each TEI will conduct an institutional assessment, develop an institutional review and decide on a
change project to implement in their own institution to address the selected issues from a sustainable
development perspective.
The Workshop Strategy
What will the training entail?

Relevant content: Trainees will learn how to integrate critical issues, such as climate change,
biodiversity, disaster risk reduction (DRR), sustainable consumption and production, and global
citizenship into the teacher education programmes.

Effective methods: Trainees will learn to design teaching and learning in an interactive, learner-centred
way that enables exploratory, action-oriented learning, and steer teaching from being transmissive and
authoritarian to becoming transformative and participatory Learning environments. Trainees will be
further encouraged to rethink learning environments – physical as well as virtual and online – to include
sustainability principles in the management of learning environments and to inspire learners to act for
sustainability.

Essential competencies: Trainees will be supported in defining learning outcomes and promoting
learning of core competencies that contribute to the development of sustainable societies, such as
critical and systemic thinking, collaborative decision-making, and taking responsibility for present and
future generations.
Programme Outline:
Day 1: 19th of June
1. Opening
2. Understanding
the Contexts
and Regional
Situation
1.1. Welcome session and greetings
1.2. Review of the agenda
1.3. Ice-breaking exercise
2.1 Global and regional contexts of SDGs, ESD, GCED (incl. from MDGs to SDGs)
2.2 Project context/PPP: goals and objectives of the project - INTRO
2.3 National context
- countries report, 4 CA countries
- Institutions: presentations and reviews
- Education planning
2.4. Round table discussion
Summary & Reflection
Day 2: 20th of June
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3. Enhancing the
Understanding
of SD themes
4. Sharing
Regional
Experiences
and Practices
Introduction to the day
3.1. Presentation of different SD themes
a. Content of different thematic areas/SDGs
b. 17 SDGs according to 4 blocks: social (1-5), economic (8-12), environmental
(6, 7, 13-15), political (16-17)
3.2. Discussion
a. GCED for SD by APCEIU
b. Role of the SDG 4.7 in the achievement all SDGs
4.1. Central Asian experience and best practices in institutional promotion of ESD:
a. Kyrgyz Republic: Role of inter-sectoral cooperation for SD promotion
b. Tajikistan: Course on Human Development: success story
4.2. Educational materials embedding ESD into teaching and learning:
UNESCO, UNEP, UNDP and CAREC ESD materials
Round table discussion (moderated by APCEIU and CAREC)
4.3. Work in national groups on 4 blocks in the context SDG4/at national level
a. Localization of 4 SDGs blocks at national level
b. Expected results: Which university/institution is responsible for SDGs in
national/institutional context
c. Presentations of groups
Round table discussion
Summary & Reflection
Day 3: 21st of June
5. Innovative
methodologies
and
approaches
5.1. Innovative methodologies and approaches embedding ESD and GCED into
teaching and learning
a. The whole institutional approach/holistic approach
b. SWOT analysis - What is missing? /work in institutional groups
c. Questions session to participants on the methodologies they use in
classrooms
5.2. Educators’ competences for ESD
a. Learners-centered approach: brainstorming, round table discussions, case
studies
b. Action oriented learning: project based, problem based learning, learning by
doing, experiential learning
c. Transformative learning: SWOT analysis as a method for transformative
learning, modeling
5.3. Practical examples on how to integrate methodologies and approaches
embedding ESD/GCED into teaching and learning
a. Work in groups on integration ESD in different subjects
b. Presentation of group work
5.4. Master class on how to integrate methodologies and approaches embedding
ESD into teaching and learning
5.5. Monitoring and evaluation in education
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Round table discussion
Summary & Reflection
Day 4: 22nd of June
6. Exhibition and
presentation
of ESD
materials
6.1. Syllabus:
a. How to introduce SD topics into existing curricula and syllabuses?
b. Analysing cases and methodologies
c. Assessment of students
d. Syllabus examples from Central Asian countries
e. Revising Syllabus examples in small groups
f. Presentation/exhibition/posters/of the group work results
6.2. Various ESD materials supporting integration of methodologies and
approaches embedding ESD into teaching and learning
a. UNESCO ESD materials
b. “Green Pack for Central Asia: Glaciers edition” as a ESD multimedia toolkit –
CAREC material: Tatiana Shakirova
c. “Step by Step” – educational toolkit from Belorussia
Round table discussion
Summary & Reflection
Day 5: 23rd of June
7. Next Step and
Closing
7.1. Introduction to Action Planning: university based project design, timeline,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation (indicators), impact, sustainability,
ownership for an institution
7.2. Development of Action plans for their institutions:
a. Presentation of existing examples of the Action Plans for ESD - by
international experts
b. Development of the Action plans for their institutions
c. Presentations of the Action plans for their institutions
7.3. Way Forward (sustainability of the project, future activities, ways forward)
7.4. Round Table discussion on promotion and sustainability of the project
7.5. Questionnaire sessions/evaluation of the workshop results
Summary and Reflection
Closing
Reference Documents
The meeting discussion will be based on the following reference documents:
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-
-
SDGs/SDG4 and objective 4.7;
GAP for ESD;
Education
for
Sustainable
Development
Goals:
Learning
Objectives
(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002474/247444e.pdf);
Global
Citizenship
Education:
Topics
and
Learning
Objectives
(http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002329/232993e.pdf);
CA countries’ national reports on ESD;
UNECE document on ESD competences for Educators “Learning for the future”;
UNECE Tools for policy and practice workshops on competences in education for ESD “Empowering
educators for a sustainable future”;
Reorienting Teacher Education to Address Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Tools:
1.
Environnemental protection http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001890/189062e.pdf
2.
Intercultural understanding http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001890/189051e.pdf
3.
Gender Sensitizing http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001890/189054e.pdf
4.
Scientific Literacy and Natural Disaster Preparedness
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001890/189050e.pdf
5.
HIV/AIDS http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001890/189053e.pdf
A Teacher’s Guide: Incorporating Education for Sustainable Development into World Heritage
Education http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001900/190006e.pdf
Publication “Learning with Intangible Heritage for Sustainable Future: Guidelines for Educators in
the Asia-Pacific Region” http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002323/232381E.pdf ;
UNESCO Clearing House on Global Citizenship Education: http://gcedclearinghouse.org/# ;
Report “Happy Schools: A Framework for Learner Well-being in the Asia-Pacific
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002441/244140E.pdf;
Thematic brief “Preparing and supporting teachers to meet challenges of the 21st century learning
in the Asia-Pacific”: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002460/246052e.pdf
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