Why the new government needs to take climate change and sustainability education seriously

Bridget Phillipson, the new Secretary of State for Education, has a long to-do list. Sitting near the top is an urgent need to reform the school curriculum, and she has been quick to launch a formal Curriculum and Assessment Review led by Professor Becky Francis, formerly Director of UCL’s Institute of Education. Both Phillipson and Francis are strongly motivated by social justice issues, and rightly want to address persistent inequalities of opportunity for young people. A crucial dimension of this mission is the need for more equitable access to high-quality climate change and sustainability education. As the new Secretary of State has set out, nothing could be more critical than how we equip the next generations for the future. This is especially urgent today, when our need to scale up efforts to combat the climate and environmental crises may be compromised by growing skill shortages and talent gaps.

Currently, the only explicit reference to climate change in the current National Curriculum for England refers to ‘evidence, and uncertainties in evidence, for additional anthropogenic causes of climate change’ (in Chemistry). Statutory content related to the climate and environmental crises do not feature in the curriculum beyond science and geography and the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable’ do not appear at all. Furthermore, neither climate change nor sustainability feature in any professional framework for teachers and school leaders, nor in school accountability measures. Currently, these exclusions set England apart from other parts of the United Kingdom, especially Scotland and Wales.

Yet this doesn’t mean changes can’t be made. We are all well aware of the challenge in helping drive these kinds of changes in curriculum; building a shared approach, supported by teachers and those working on climate, will be vital to long-term success.

One way to do this might be to ensure some of these issues are placed front and centre in the Curriculum and Assessment Review and, in parallel, to make their inclusion in initial teacher training, continuing professional development and school accountability structures a key element of the reform agenda.

We know that climate change and sustainability education are critical elements of the social justice agenda. And the government is keen to ensure the agenda is supported in the long term. It’s also supported by young people themselves. This year we surveyed over 2400 young people aged 11-14 and found that while 66% of respondents indicate that they know what to do to care for the environment, this falls to 49% for students from less advantaged backgrounds. These students were also less likely than more advantaged students to enjoy learning about climate change and sustainability, and less likely to see the value of related education.  Furthermore, just 14% of respondents to our survey from less advantaged backgrounds stated that they would like to work in a job related to climate change and sustainability.

Our research also pointed to significant gender differences, with girls more likely to display anxiety about climate change than boys and more likely to be interested in learning more about the issues. Overall, this research suggests a concerning level of inequality of experience and aspiration amongst young people in a world where learning to live and work more sustainability will be increasingly central to living a good life, individually and collectively. 

Our young people’s survey followed a national survey of teachers carried out in 2022. Less than 13% of the respondents to our teacher survey said they had received relevant input in their training year and over 70% said they had resorted to teaching themselves about how to incorporate climate change and sustainability into their teaching. This informal and ad hoc approach to teachers’ professional development can only exacerbate the inequality of student experiences across schools, a phenomenon that has been clearly illustrated in parallel case study research which demonstrated the disparity between the most and least engaged schools. Our research also reaffirms the important role that school leaders play in driving forward responses to the climate and ecological crisis, while highlighting the frustrations of headteachers who recognise the magnitude of the crisis and the role of education in responding to it, but who do not feel able to make it one of their priorities, especially when there is no requirement do so.

One way in which we would recommend government approach this issue is to focus on three priorities in relation to climate change and sustainability education. The first, and most time-sensitive, is to ensure a focus on climate change and sustainability education across the whole curriculum as part of the current curriculum review. Our teacher and student surveys demonstrate that climate change and sustainability are not routinely embedded across all subjects beyond geography and science. This is highly problematic because climate science is diagnostic, but climate change is not a ‘science’ problem; it is a societal problem, a human problem requiring new ways to think, a reorientation of our values system and a readiness to adapt. We need to engage all young people in an act of collective imagination about a sustainable future for everyone and inspire them to pursue jobs and lifestyles that help to make this happen and enrich their lives in the process.    

Second, the government could include high-quality professional development about climate change and sustainability education as part of Labour’s proposed Teacher Training Entitlement. With a minority of teachers in our survey reporting they have received formal training about how to teach these issues, there must now be a focus on the provision of appropriate professional development opportunities for all teachers, tailored by subject and age phase. This will be crucial if a revised curriculum includes an explicit focus on climate change and sustainability and equally crucial if, as now, teachers are encouraged to ‘find space’ for these issues themselves in an already crowded curriculum. Effective professional development will support teachers to incorporate an environmental focus across the whole curriculum, address the affective dimensions of climate change and sustainability education, including climate anxiety, and extend the scope for outdoor learning and engagement with nature.

Finally, stronger leadership of climate change and sustainability education in schools is vital. School sustainability leads, alongside headteachers and governors, can bring actions across school estates, local communities, and the school curriculum together to provide dynamic models of climate change responses. Given the crucial role of headteachers in supporting this agenda, they need the permission and space to make climate change and sustainability education a priority in their schools through a revision of the curriculum, and of national professional qualifications and school inspection frameworks.

The new government has signalled a clear commitment to tackling the climate and ecological crisis and wants to reform the education system to create greater opportunities for all young children. This provides a huge moment to bring the two priorities together and provide our young people with the education they need for the future.

Authors:
Dr Alison Kitson, Programme Director, UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education
Professor Nicola Walshe, Executive Director, UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education