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The project integrates a wide range of activities to develop
resources, revise and develop new curriculum initiatives, build
capacity and strengthen national and regional networks. More
specifically, the project-specific objectives are to:
• Support the development of ESD in the higher education sector
in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon
• Build capacity amongst university staff to embed ESD in curric-
ula and pedagogy
• Review and revise undergraduate curricula to address ESD in line
with Bologna and Lisbon processes
• Assist the coordination and dissemination of ESD policy, research,
curriculum reform and practice relating to ESD in the partner insti-
tutions that are expected to function as role models in the region.
This process entails six key components:
• Develop ESD competences for higher education students, contex-
tualized to the E.U. and Arab region
• Evaluate ESD student competences in the participating higher
education institutions
• Establish new models of professional development in ESD
• Revise education and certification requirements to include ESD
and align these revisions to correspond to the ESD student compe-
tences and the Bologna process
• Apply and evaluate the revised education curricula with respect to
the ESD student competences
• Promote the reorientation of higher education towards ESD
as a viable avenue for ‘whole institution’ curriculum reform,
research and teaching across all higher education institutions
in the Arab region.
The development, adoption and implementation of each of these
components will be articulated over the three-year duration of
the project (October 2010–September 2013). Curriculum review
and revision will be carried out in the disciplines of Educational
Sciences, Engineering, Information Technology and Applied Sciences.
Appropriate resources will be developed, such as an ESD Curriculum
Review Toolkit and Virtual Centers for Curriculum Reform in every
partner higher education institution. Workshops will be implemented
to prepare university staff for curriculum review and development
of syllabuses/modules addressing ESD. It is expected that more than
40 per cent of the content of the study programmes in the disci-
plines involved will be redesigned to address sustainability issues.
Institutional mechanisms, inter-faculty cooperation and inter-faculty
student mobility will be developed to ensure continuity. A pilot initia-
tive for student placement and practicum in local NGOs connected to
ESD will be implemented to strengthen the role of higher education
institutions in society to reach the targets of the DESD.
Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) Crete on ESD
The RCE Crete was established and acknowledged by the United
Nations University in 2009 and is led by the UNESCO Chair ICT in
ESD, Department of Primary Education, University of Crete. It brings
together local actors (higher education institutions, local government
bodies, municipalities, chambers of commerce and environmental
education centres) to tackle the following key regional challenges:
•
Stressed natural resources
: Reduction of waste of our natural
resources, such as water, energy and solid waste, is critical for
the region’s sustainable future
•
A changing climate
: 50 per cent of land in Crete is at high risk of
desertification, with dire regional and national consequences
•
Deforestation
: Forests in Crete are threatened not
only by overgrazing but also by forest fires, whether
deliberate or accidental
•
Threatened biodiversity
: Conservation of endangered
animals and native plants of Crete is at a critical point
•
Alternative tourism development
: Crete’s sustainability
will be seriously threatened and its irreplaceable natural
and cultural resources will be irreversibly damaged
unless the tourist industry is re-conceptualized
•
Loss of indigenous knowledge
: Indigenous knowledge
is rapidly being lost and thus needs to be preserved
for the benefit of future generations.
The vision of the RCE Crete is to tackle the problems
identified in the key ESD challenges in the region and
contribute to the promotion of ESD locally, regionally
and globally. Specific objectives include the development
of a Web-based platform for promoting dialogue among
the key regional stakeholders involved and other inter-
ested groups to turn Crete into a sustainable region.
Another objective is to raise public awareness and action
regarding the key sustainability issues in the region, espe-
cially concerning threatened biodiversity, sustainable
agriculture, desertification and traditional knowledge for
a sustainable way of life in the region. Short-term sustain-
ability activities will gradually expand to broader areas
such as cities/communities, schools and higher education
institutions, businesses and households.
Interregional and global collaboration with other
RCEs will be encouraged, with the development of
joint projects, research and mechanisms for sharing and
disseminating accumulated knowledge, experiences,
expertise and examples of good practices in ESD.
Major projects (2010–2014)
• Develop a Master Action Plan that will help trans-
form the City of Rethymnon into a model of a
sustainable city that is clean, healthy, resource-
efficient and environmentally conscientious
• Develop a Sustainable Community Toolkit that will
provide ideas and descriptions of specific actions that
a local government in the region of Crete can take to
transform itself into a model of sustainable practices
• Develop and implement the concept of ‘ESD School
Resource Teacher’ through a Web-based training system
• Design and develop case studies on ESD regionally,
challenging selected primary and secondary schools
to provide a foundation for addressing these themes
across all schools in the region
• Explore the development of alternative tourism
through the measurement of attitudes and current
actions towards sustainable tourism
• Develop a systematic cataloguing of indigenous
knowledge and explore its utilization to promote the
sustainable development in the region.
It is hoped that all of the above initiatives and projects
will continue to enhance the prospect of achieving a
sustainable future through best practices in ESD.