Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) seeks to give learners, at all stages of education, an understanding of the impact of their choices on other people, the economy and the environment.
ESDGC aims to challenge learners to see how they can contribute to the lives of others. It is being mainstreamed across all education sectors and embedded in a wide range of subjects.
ESDGC is built around 7 themes:
- the natural environment
- consumption and waste
- climate change
- wealth and poverty
- identity and culture
- choices and decisions
- health.
Practitioners deliver ESDGC across learning settings in Wales. The focus is on improving delivery. The Global Learning Programme Wales (external link) supports this for Key Stages 2 and 3 and special schools. A variety of resources (external link) and curriculum materials (external link) can be found on their website.
The British Council operates the Connecting Classrooms Programme (external link) which offers funding and support to allow UK and international schools to gain an understanding of each others’ education systems and improve their global awareness.
To ensure that ESDGC is effectively embedded, it is part of the inspection framework introduced by Estyn in September 2010. This means that Estyn assesses the quality and provision of ESDGC in all the education sectors that it inspects. As a result, good practice can be identified and shared, and any weaknesses can be addressed.
Estyn have undertaken thematic reviews of ESDGC in schools (external link) and in adult community learning and youth work settings (external link). These reports include a number of good practice case studies.
Our self-assessment toolkit for work-based learning providers gives practical guidance on incorporating ESDGC themes into learning delivery