Teaching teachers to teach green

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” – Our Common Future report by the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987.

We’ve been hearing about the climate crisis for a long time now. The EU is taking many measures and funding many initiatives that are supposed to make Europe a zero-emission continent. Much is happening on this topic, but is it enough? What more can we do?

In Poland, the need to care for the environment and the necessity of ecological education has long been recognised. Already in 1991, one of the first places to train teachers in ecological education and environmental protection was established. It is an educational and didactic centre in the Ojców National Park.

At the national level, we can specify several institutions whose goal is to implement appropriate actions and strategies. These are the Ministry of Climate and Environment; NFOŚiGW and WFOŚiGW, the national and provincial (respectively) funds for environmental protection and water management; GIOŚ, the chief inspectorate for environmental protection, as well as Lasy Pańśtwowe, Poland’s state forests and the national parks.

Let’s take a look how education in this area looks like. In Poland, ecology education is implemented as environmental education. Content related to environmental protection is included from the first years of education. In particular, natural science subjects such as nature, chemistry, geography, and biology develop this content.

When it comes about post-primary education, there are three models in Poland: general secondary schools, vocational technical schools and vocational schools. The latter two educate in professions that are specified in the classification of vocational education professions. This classification is created based on the demand for professions on the labour market. Therefore, a component of waste management appears in vocational education, primarily in professions related to logistics and transport. More and more professions related to recycling or plastics processing are also appearing.

There is an Integrated Educational Platform of the Ministry of Education and Science, where we have online access to educational materials from various areas (core curriculum, vocational education).

The out-of-school education sector is very well developed. Training institutions offer a number of courses that must be completed in order to take a certification exam. This mainly concerns professions related to renewable energy sources. The Office of Technical Inspection is responsible for the accreditation of training companies, which also examines and issues appropriate certificates.

At Sysco Polska, as a non-public vocational education and training (VET) institution, we have taken action at the education level – because the young generation is our future! We have created a two-year project GROWS – Moving towards a Green tRansitiOn through sustainable Waste management education in the VET Sector (Erasmus+, Project No. 2023-1-PL01-KA220-VET-000151774). We are its leader in an international partnership: Centre for Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology Ltd CARDETt (from Cyprus), KMOP – Education and Innovation Hub (from Greece), LAND Impresa Sociale S.R.L. (from Italy), RIGHTCHALLENGE – Associação (from Portugal), Innovade Li Ltd (from Cyprus) and the Bulgarian Romanian Chamber Of Commerce And Industry Association (from Bulgaria). Such a consortium gives a broad view of the situation in various countries and enables the creation and testing of innovative solutions.

The GROWS project aims to raise awareness and empower the VET sector on the importance of sustainable waste management and the environment, while increasing the capacity of VET providers/trainers to implement environmental education activities with a focus on sustainable waste management and to raise their competence level in preparing and implementing a green education action plan.

To achieve this, we are taking various actions and developing comprehensive tools. So far, we have created a GROWS toolkit for developing a green strategy in VET, which includes teacher-training materials and strategies to increase students’ green skills in vocational training, including an international report with country-specific data. We have placed it on the projectgrows.eu website, which we will further develop with an e-learning platform.We are currently working on expanding it with ready-made lesson plans and open educational resources.There, you will be able to find scenarios on topics such as food waste, cosmetics and cleaning products, or transport – topics that are very close to us.Our platform will include an intelligent tutor which will provide advice on creating an action plan for green education, including GreenComp.The whole will constitute a training program that will provide VET providers with practical opportunities to build competences in the field of sustainable development in waste management using the project’s resources.

In parallel, we are expanding the partnership committee, which consists from VET providers, trainers, students, decision-makers/experts in environmental education, NGOs and officials from relevant ministries and offices. We invite anyone who is ready to get involved in our activities to cooperate with us.

We approach these activities with full commitment and seriousness, because the topic is very important. We set ourselves ambitious challenges. We want our project to reach over 2,000 VET providers and over 1,000 VET learners. We believe that our project is a significant step towards promoting sustainable development and green education in the vocational education sector. Thanks to the cooperation of an international consortium, we integrate best practices and innovative solutions that will enable future generations to make informed decisions for the protection of the environment. By developing an e-learning platform, we provide the tools and educational resources necessary to build ecological competences. Our goal is to educate a generation capable of implementing zero-emission strategies and a circular economy. We believe that such initiatives will contribute to the transformation towards a more sustainable and responsible Europe.

Progress in the implementation of the project and various interesting facts from its thematic scope are available on our fanpage – please follow and like it!