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Young people will inherit a world defined by climate change, technological disruption and uncertainty. Are we giving them the tools to navigate it? On this episode of #TheFutureIsFemale Melisa Idris speaks with Karen Chand, Managing Director of the SDG Academy under the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network at Sunway University. Karen spearheads efforts under the Mission 4.7 initiative which aims to transform K-12 education in the Asia Pacific by making sustainable development a key feature of national curriculums.
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00:10hello and good evening I'm Melissa Idris welcome to the future is female this is the show where we
00:15find the extraordinary in every woman and I am delighted to introduce my guest today Karen
00:20Chand who is the managing director of the SDG Academy under the United Nations sustainable
00:26development solutions network now in this world Karen also spearheads efforts under the Mission
00:324.7 initiative which aims to transform k-12 education in the Asia-Pacific by making sustainable
00:39development a key feature of national curriculums and what that means we'll find out more so welcome
00:46to the show Karen it's good to have you here thank you Melissa it's my pleasure to be here so
00:51like
00:51many people I think when I hear education for sustainable development I think or I imagine
00:56lessons about climate change but I know it's so much more than that so maybe we can begin our
01:01conversation by you explaining what ESD is what that entails and why it's important today sure
01:09thank you so ESD is education for sustainable development and it goes beyond just the content
01:18or the knowledge part of it so it's not education in sustainable development or about sustainable
01:23development but it's education for sustainable development which means it is the type of
01:30education that can enable sustainable development to occur so the Mission 4.7 initiative is actually to
01:40advance target 7 of SDG 4 so SDG 4 is on quality education and target 7 is on education for
01:51sustainable
01:52development and this includes beyond just education on climate change but every single aspect of
02:02sustainable development that we find across the 17 SDGs so whether it's the the economic the social the
02:09environmental or the governance is this is a new initiative I mean are there elements of education for
02:16sustainable development already embedded in national school curriculums let's take Malaysia for example
02:22yeah so it is not a new initiative in fact it's something that has existed for I would say more
02:28than a decade
02:31because there have been elements of sustainable development already incorporated and if we look
02:39at the the the Malaysian education system the curriculum was last revised in 2017 okay and
02:46when that was done it was already after the SDGs had been adopted and there were changes that were made
02:54in the curriculum mostly in science and mostly to do with things like climate change and environmental destruction
03:01but it was never really packaged or or communicated as sustainable development it was just new content that was added
03:11um and to go along with that the content was added but some of the research that we did to
03:19determine the
03:20status of education for sustainable development in Malaysia actually revealed that even though content was added
03:27um a missing element was the capacity building of educators to be able to deliver that content
03:36um in the best way possible you're referring to the report that you put out on this so can you
03:42tell
03:42me a little bit about that you looked at the curriculum the the education uh curriculum and try to identify
03:49where the gaps were what was missing was that right yes that's correct so we looked at the public school
03:55curriculum across various subjects and we found that indeed there were a lot of elements of sustainable
04:01development that had already been incorporated and um like i said they were mostly in science
04:08but we saw many more opportunities for it to be included in fact um sustainable development can
04:15actually be included in in any subject that you can imagine whether it's math or even languages or history
04:22there's a lot of opportunity to to do that um but the this study that we did and the first
04:31report that we put out
04:33revealed that teachers were not really uh prepared enough or they felt that they were not uh capacity
04:41built to deliver it in the most effective way beyond what is just written as content in textbooks okay okay
04:50first of all i need to know how esd could look like in math and languages and history what what
04:57does that
04:58give me some examples of how it can be for more than just embedded in sciences sure so i think
05:04a very
05:04simple uh example i can think of is when we look at the environmental aspect okay so let's imagine a
05:10school
05:11school is located in a rural area um perhaps close to a river okay and um let's say in the
05:20science subject there is um content about pollution
05:25so they could actually look at something that's happening in their own backyard and maybe for science they could take
05:31samples of the water from the river in math they could look at how they can present the data of
05:39the findings
05:40in perhaps a graphical format in languages they could perhaps write a letter to the local authority
05:48to share the findings with them that could be a language aspect history of course they could look at
05:54you know how the the landscape had changed over time in their own location so this would make um not
06:01only science more interesting but the whole learning experience something that is very interesting but also
06:06something that is part of the learners lived reality what they see on a day-to-day basis and what
06:14i like
06:14about um esd also is that it's kind of rooted in the assumption that the world is changing yes right
06:20um and
06:21how important is it karen that that the esd the principles that underpin education for sustainable
06:28development is made explicit because you said in the beginning back in 2017 when we first had that
06:34it was kind of embedded but it wasn't really you know clearly spelt out that this is esd education for
06:39sustainable development how important is it that we we name it and label it and then integrate it across
06:45disciplines yeah this is really important and our first study actually revealed that one of the
06:50the barriers to it being adopted or practiced was because it wasn't made explicit in previous policies
06:57and how it is made explicit well globally um the unesco makes it explicit uh to all its member countries
07:06so there is a thing called esd 2030 and um all unesco member countries subscribe to that
07:13so this provided a very critical starting point um for malaysia so there is in fact a team already um
07:22within the ministry that has been pursuing this so when sdsn set up its office here in asia it was
07:29it made perfect sense to work with the the malaysian ministry of education uh which we did uh with great
07:36success and um we then like the the first research that we put out um uncovered opportunities for us
07:45to design an intervention which we did and the one that was really uh critical which was what we
07:52addressed was this teacher capacity building program so we designed it we we ran it we piloted it in several
07:59public schools across the country and then we documented the findings of that experience as well
08:05and um that gave us the the um the the foundation to propose um policy
08:16explicitness but you have you have the track record now right you have an um kind of evidence to present
08:21to the ministry so so what does that look like what what did the um interventions for teachers look
08:26like to build their capacity for esd yeah so again it was it's beyond just knowledge it's about how they
08:33can do things differently in their classrooms um it was about trying new uh pedagogical approaches
08:41those that are more action oriented more project based and also um incorporating that transdisciplinarity
08:49that we talked about how we can work across our work with our colleagues across disciplines to make
08:55learning much more holistic and more interesting um and after piloting this with all of that experience
09:04we brought the findings to the ministry and then worked again closely with our colleagues there to
09:10make it part of the new um national education plan that's 2026 to 2035 so now for the first time
09:19there is um a dedicated pillar on education for sustainable development in the transformation plan for
09:27the next 10 years fantastic with the um teachers training essentially was that um is there an ability
09:34to scale up some of the interventions that you designed is would it be possible to scale that at a
09:40national
09:40level yes so um after conducting our pilot we put out our second report and i would say the the
09:49bulk
09:49of that report is how do we now scale this yes so that it's not just a pilot um that
09:55happened in a
09:56pocket but rather it is now meant to be something that can inform national level transformation so it
10:03has to be scaled and the way we designed it is for it to be scaled um to include every
10:10single educator
10:11all 500 000 of them and every school in the country all 10 000 of them wow so esd is
10:18for
10:19every age level of k-12 education not just k-12 education but but actually uh across lifelong learning
10:28because i mean we're talking about educating educators as well we're talking about um capacity building
10:34school leaders we're talking about capacity building people who work in the the ministry machinery
10:41um in the governance system we are also talking about um education that also applies to professional
10:49development of even people in the corporate sector because uh education for sustainable development
10:54actually applies to to anybody yeah you can bring it it's just a transferable skill you can bring it
11:00um everywhere um in life and you know i think in the corporate setting as well with all the esg
11:06initiatives that you you really need to have this literacy embedded um what was the feedback when you
11:12did this um training with the teachers we built capacity was was it good did they feel like they were
11:18being
11:18empowered with this knowledge or um was that kind of more on their plate i think about some of the
11:24the
11:24workload that teachers have to carry nowadays um and i wonder whether we as society ask so much of our
11:32teachers without giving them enough support what was the feedback that you got yeah so first of all
11:39it's really true that they have a lot a lot on their plate um but having said that i think
11:45the part that
11:46really made them feel empowered is the one of the main messages of the training program is that um
11:54learning should be contextualized based on the needs of that particular school and the group of
11:59students that they are dealing with because they would be unique compared to every other school in
12:04the country so um traditionally they may have felt like they were just delivering a one-size-fits-all
12:12like top-down centralized curriculum correct so in this way they could make learning more personalized so
12:18they could feel like they had ownership and and agency in creating this transformation and i think
12:25that is something that's very energizing and very empowering i really love to hear that what was the
12:30um have you heard about feedback from parents um now that we have this you said we have a pillar
12:36now in
12:36the new education blueprint uh what has been some of the feedback that you've heard about whether or not
12:42parents and other stakeholders think that this is as important as as clearly it is those that we have
12:49spoken to all feel like it is um a very welcome transformation because if we look at the disparities
12:56between uh private schooling and public schooling in the country we find that in private schooling
13:03schools actually have a lot of autonomy to do things the way they see fit for their audience
13:08um in in public schools now with with esd this is becoming something that's transferred to them as well
13:17so it is something that actually would um elevate the quality of the education system to make it
13:24something that is much more future relevant um so definitely parents are supportive of it other
13:32stakeholders well if we look at um again if we look at the private sector it's also something that's
13:37very welcome because at the end of the day they will be the beneficiaries of this human capital
13:43that our education system produces it's a long game right you're building the citizens from today
13:49um with the so you've worked with um the government um ministry of education not just i think uh malaysia
13:56you also look at the region as well just based on your experience your observations what what has been
14:02some of the barriers i would say the biggest barriers to
14:07transforming education we talk a lot about education reform everyone has an opinion about it but
14:11this is essentially your your field of work what have you observed about why it is so difficult to
14:17transform our education system um i i like to look at barriers as as opportunities so when we conducted that
14:28second piece of work um we uncovered several um i'll call them enablers okay so the first one
14:37was that policy and direction and now that has been addressed because now it is explicit so that is a
14:45excellent starting point but when you have written policy you still need to implement it and that is usually
14:55where um much more work needs to be done and more support is required so to to complement the national
15:07education plan we have also with um like-minded colleagues uh including the ministry of education
15:14come up with an action plan of how to actually operationalize what is written in the national education plan
15:23um and this um action plan literally spells out not just the what you need to do but how how
15:30do you
15:30actually do it the implementation of it exactly how long will it take how much will it cost who will
15:36it involve um so this gives that very clear pathway um of what to do over the next 10 years
15:44and i think
15:45this having this um having this um as an enabler really addresses that um that barrier or that obstacle
15:53of implementation are we on track are we kind of are we following the plan that's been laid out for
15:58us
15:58well we are still at the starting point so we're at 2026 this is the starting point so we have
16:03to ensure
16:04that we that action plan is well communicated to to all schools and every stakeholder for that matter
16:11uh so that it is um executed as planned well you look at not just the region but now globally
16:19when
16:19you look at um other countries other communities that have embarked on this transformative education
16:25are is there anywhere that you're looking that's doing particularly interesting work well actually
16:30malaysia is one of the first movers that has um such a detailed plan explicit action plan in this in
16:39this area
16:40so um we're very excited about this we think that especially for the developing world this can be an
16:47excellent um example and model and uh we are very excited to to talk about it and to share
16:56malaysia's journey with other countries around the world so i i can only imagine that um education reform
17:03does take a long time uh we're talking you know years it is as i said a long game but
17:09you also have
17:11essentially a deadline for the sdgs you know you're thinking about the 2030 agenda we're just a few years
17:17away from that and you mentioned the esd 2030 as well under unesco how do you think we're doing are
17:24we
17:24are we on track to be meeting some of these um 2030 goals and what do you see i guess
17:30post that 2030
17:32deadline what what happens after 2031 yeah so 2030 is just four years away um esd 2030 is to advance
17:43target 4.7 and target 4.7 says to ensure all learners have been equipped with the knowledge and
17:52skills to enable sustainable development we know that we are far from that um along other targets
17:58of sdg4 which have to do with access to education countries are doing very well including malaysia
18:05but when it comes to 4.7 in particular we are not quite there yet so work has already commenced
18:12on
18:13um the post 2030 agenda for esd as well and um again every country is different so the approaches
18:22and the interventions taken has to be very contextualized um but we are looking to showcase
18:30examples like what's going on in malaysia and other countries and this will be um very valuable material or
18:37resource to enable other countries to also emulate um adapted of course to their own local that is such
18:45a good point because sometimes i think uh some of the i guess criticism even if i can call it
18:50that
18:51the argument is that esd sdgs or esds specifically education for sustainable developments often perceived
18:58to be quite western centric right it's um rooted in western ideologies how do you localize it to
19:07fit into a context that is culturally and societally suitable for societies like malaysia yeah that's
19:14an excellent question actually and it's something that um i actually feel very strongly about that it has
19:19to be localized in fact um there's a lot of um local cultural traditional um even religious knowledge
19:28that can be supportive of the principles of esd for instance well okay if you look at our indigenous
19:36communities for example the orang asli of peninsula malaysia they have a wealth of um ancestral and
19:44cultural traditions and knowledge um that have been passed down from generation to generation that
19:51actually value the land and the environment um and all of this can actually inform the the education
19:58education or rather complement this esd uh principles that are being kind of imposed perceived as imposed from
20:07the western world so it can be a process of of really co-creation of content because at the end
20:14of the day
20:15um the the goals are the same right we all want the same thing but there are many ways to
20:21get there and
20:21if you root it in something that that the learners can really relate to then it becomes um you know
20:31the
20:31the chance of success is that much higher compared to something that they just need to accept yes and
20:38and digest yes are you are you hearing that from young people nowadays i can i can imagine young people
20:44have a whole host of um anxieties about the future right there's climate change there's economic uncertainty
20:50there's conflict happening when you think about the principles of esd and the ability to adapt to a
20:57changing world are they optimistic that you're you know they're being given skills to cope with
21:03what is an ever-changing world they will be optimistic if they feel like these problems are something that
21:10they can help solve yeah um if it is something that they feel powerless about then it could be
21:17something that creates a lot of anxiety for them but um esd is essentially about building competencies in
21:26learners and um unesco has eight of these competencies like um problem solving critical thinking strategic
21:34thinking uh systems thinking and all of this really if you build these competencies in learners you are
21:42empowering them to actually see themselves as change agents who can make a difference who can actually
21:48do something about what's happening around them i also really like the fact that we should be seeing
21:55ourselves as global citizens so it's you know not just what is local but how do we affect things on
22:01a
22:01global stage isn't it yes that's absolutely right um and again these competencies um also involve
22:08things like collaboration so working in partnership with um people around you including around the world
22:15about um connecting with people around the world um about understanding different cultures and this
22:22is then so important for this area of peace which is now something that is very relevant
22:28to all of us um but it's something that learners can actually do something about so so in the time
22:35that we have left i'm curious to know about the sdg academy that you're you're now spearheading what
22:41what is the work what is the vision for this um and where are we at because you know sometimes
22:46um
22:48work in education reform can take a long time and how do you stop yourself from getting demotivated how do
22:54you
22:54keep your motivation up when the work the progress seems slow yeah so work in transforming education
23:01does indeed take a long time but um it's not it's not a question of sitting back and waiting for
23:09things
23:10to happen because there's a lot that needs to be done along the way and um a big part of
23:15this is actually
23:16not just um education of kids you know of of primary and secondary school students but it's also about
23:25um professional uh upskilling of adults yeah right and um this is where the sdg academy comes in so the
23:34sdg academy is sdsn's um education platform and uh one of its main activities is to provide
23:44capacity building uh professional development in essentially any aspect of sustainable development
23:52that you can think of and there are more than 50 courses from environmental issues to economic to
23:59social and they're all available online completely for free for anyone around the world who is interested
24:06in a particular topic oh wow and um this really uh provides that that opportunity for anyone to upskill
24:15themselves um which could be relevant to their own career development or it could be relevant to um
24:23something that they feel passionate about that they want to get involved in so this would give them that
24:28that um knowledge foundation to to help them take that leap what an amazing resource to have to have
24:35at your disposal thank you so much karen for coming on the show and telling us a little bit about
24:39the
24:39work that you've been doing and the important um work of embedding education in sustainable development
24:45for this country thank you thank you so much melissa that's all the time we have for you on this
24:50episode of the future is female i'm melissa adriess signing off for the evening thank you so much for
24:54watching good night
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