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UCL and British Council Iraq working together for better climate change and sustainability education
UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education partnered with British Council Iraq to enhance Iraqi climate change and sustainability education.
25 March 2024
Tackling the issues of climate change and sustainability is gaining urgency globally, as recognised by the UN SDGs and UCL’s own Grand Challenges strategy. Like countries across the world, Iraq is suffering the effects of climate change, particularly in the form of severe droughts. Recognising a need to make meaningful progress, in December 2022 British Council Iraq embarked on a partnership with academics from the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education to enhance this area of education in the country.
Before this project commenced, IOE academics previously work completed in Iraq through the Iraqi Human Rights Award, which involved elements of climate change education as an extracurricular activity. The Iraq School Human Rights Award was launched by Iraq's Ministry of Education to embed a culture of human rights in Iraqi schools.
British Council Iraq wanted to explore how climate change and sustainability education could become a strengthened element of the Iraq School Human Rights Award, how teachers could be supported in this field, and the dialogue needed between ministers and other key decision makers.
Support to create appropriate solutions
The first phase of the project involved the UCL team visiting Erbil, Iraq, to connect with Iraqi policymakers, teachers, school leaders and other key stakeholders for knowledge exchange workshops and meetings. All the workshops were translated into Arabic and Kurdish, and the context from across Iraq was discussed, as well as the locality of Erbil.
“The visit was really crucial”, said Professor Nicola Walshe. “It was important for us to collaboratively develop solutions, rather than simply us telling them what they should do.”
Dr Lizzie Rushton and Dr Kate Greer surveyed Iraqi teachers which had originally been developed for the English context. This enabled them to gain an even greater depth of information about teachers in Iraq.
The work resulted in recommendations and materials which British Council Iraq can now implement. This material focused on how to support enhancements in policy, teacher professional development and teaching practice.
Ultimately, by focusing on education in the context of climate change and sustainability in Iraq, this work has the potential to influence the learning of millions of school age children. It is hoped some students will become key leaders and decision makers in the future, so they will be well versed in how sustainability is crucial to Iraq’s future.
A stepping stone for future work
The British Council went on to use this project to help define their priorities for climate change and sustainability education on a global scale, which was launched in a collaborative report with IOE and the University of Stirling and presented at COP28 events in Dubai in 2023.
The UCL team are now consulting with the British Council on further projects, including supporting their ability to deliver professional development for teachers and school leaders in Iraq.
“The recommendations, and later on, the review of the proposed materials really helped me to shape our training approach,” said Ammar Tariq, Interim Head of Education at British Council Iraq. “[It has] inspired the process of developing schools’ annual plans to deliver climate change education as part of a larger scheme related to human rights education. The experience I had was inspiring in terms of thinking of this work as behavioural change among children. [It] was driven by receiving an appropriate level of knowledge rather than focusing simply on course book design – and in that respect it was different to the process normally followed in Iraq and so had greater impact on the students, teachers and the local community.”
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Provided by British Council Iraq - classwork produced by students.