2.5. Education for Sustainable Development

2.5.1. The Concept of Education for Sustainable Development and Its Content Regulation

Hungarian efforts to protect the environment and develop an economy using sustainable resources have been perceptible increasingly in Hungarian social and public governance as well as in the domain of education. Over the last few years legislation on environmental protection and educational policies have converged and this enabled a breakthrough for the area of pedagogy for sustainable development.

Environmental education is regulated by educational legislation. According to 48.§ 3. para of the 2003 Amendment (Act LXI) to the 1993 Act on Public Education (Act LXXIX) all Hungarian public educational institutions must expand the local pedagogical programme by a local strategy for school-based environmental and health education. The development priorities of Hungarian public education are spelled out in the Mid-term Strategy for Public Education, issued by the Ministry of Education in 2004.

The National Core Programme of Pre-Primary Education (1999) laid down the foundations of a differentiated and decentralised pre-school education. All pre-school educational institutions created their own educational programmes based on this national core regulatory document.

The National Core Programme of Pre-Primary Education created ample opportunities to elaborate local educational programmes for children at the age of 3-7. The majority of the kindergartens have based their educational programmes on their previously tested experience, incorporating local social educational needs into their action plans.

The attitude of kindergarten teachers to the relevant emerging educational programmes greatly varies based on previous experience and motivation. Kindergartens can be categorised according to their independent innovation initiatives or their willingness to adopt the new pedagogical programmes of other institutions. The challenge to create local educational programmes has “forced” kindergarten educators to assess themselves and to re-interpret specialist literature including pre-school environmental educational methods.

2.5.2. The Practice of Environmental Education in Public Educational Institutions

A great number of kindergartens tackle environmental protection and natural conservation as a priority in their educational programmes. Forest-based pre-school educational methods are popular but not widespread. The foundation of a positive attitude towards nature and clean environment is an important objective for pre-school education. The number of kindergartens with an educational focus on environmental issues is rather limited and there is no widespread empirical data available. The so-called “green kindergartens” participate actively in public calls for proposals on environmental education and their teachers regularly organise extracurricular activities such as special days to celebrate the Earth, Animals, Water, etc.. These institutions are relatively well equipped and have positive impact on local environmental protection.

The green kindergartens usually have well-kept gardens with learning paths, which demonstrate nature empirically. The Green Fountain public calls for proposals by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Water Management annually provide sufficient public subsidy for Hungarian kindergartens to improve their environments and to train their staff.

At school level the traditional forms of environmental education use extracurricular methods (activities, camps, museums and zoo pedagogy, special days, local initiatives competitions, exhibitions, etc.) for the integration and harmonisation of various school subjects related to the environment. (Havas, 1997). Since environmental education has no separate school subject definition it is realised mainly in other subjects or in extracurricular teaching situations. This so-called “diffusion” as a comprehensive, overreaching and coordinated educational approach to learn about the environment is a widespread and accepted method worldwide. The learning content includes the natural, the constructed environment as well as aspects of economic, civic and democratic education, which in turn indicates the transformation of environmental education towards a new paradigm of education for sustainability. (Vásárhelyi J.- Nagy T., 2004).

One of the most important new achievements in the field of environmental education is the launching of national forest schools Programme. The government subsidises a special forest school educational programme as a unique learning organisation, which started in the school year of 2003/2004. These schools provide several days of out-of-school learning experience during the school year. It makes possible for pupils to live in the forest or national parks, protected environmental areas and discover them as natural learning environments and conduct unique learning exercises different from the ordinary class-based situation. Forest schools are financed both from the central and local budgets. The most important objectives of the programme is that all pupils in general schools should have access to forest schools during the eight years of schooling and should experience team work methods.

2.5.3. The Context of Environmental Education: Support Systems, Networks and Programmes

There are several strengths and weaknesses observable in the provision of environmental education. In pre-school education this form of activity starts with the creation of a timetable and covers the formation of environment-awareness. In the routine of every day kindergarten education there are effective ways of establishing positive attitudes to cherish nature.

At school level environmental education usually takes place in the classes of science subjects. In a minority of schools environmental education emerges also in the humanities and conversation classes. The lack of funding and insufficient teacher training are general obstacles to successful environmental education.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Water Management provides access to various international resources (especially know-how) and a number of co-operation frameworks are emerging including the Norwegian “Acid rain”, the Dutch “Ozone survey” and the English “Science Across Europe” programmes.

In 1992 an intersectoral agreement between the environmental and the educational administrations established the priorities for the environmental education in Hungary. In 1999 the two ministries issued a Joint Concept for Environmental Education. This covers pre-school and public education, vocational training, tertiary education and in-service training programmes. In 1999 the two ministries established the Task Force for Environmental Education and Communication. The portfolio included the elaboration of a database on forest schools to facilitate choice for practitioners. The majority of forest schools are private enterprises, the educational services of which this task force carries out and this gives information on all new proposals and operates a library as well. This agency also provides consulting related to environmental education including the establishment of forest schools, editing specialist studies, organising conferences, presentations and drafting environmental education and communication schemes for local governments. (www.konkomp.hu)

The 2003 National Development Plan gave a boost to social and economic planning and project generation. This programme contains a separate chapter on Human Resources Development Plan (in a separate operational programme), which tackles the principle of sustainable development as a horizontal priority. All public educational calls for proposals are set to reflect this priority.

The SULINOVA Centre for Programme Development and In-service Teacher Training was set up in 2004 by the Ministry of Education and will soon publish comprehensive educational packages that contain teaching and learning elements for the concept of sustainability, references to support networks and related in-service teacher training capacities to maintain quality assurance. All criteria of sustainability are integrated into the teaching packages elaborated by this centre.

The reasons for environmental educational are further strengthened by the national programme for environmental protection, which defines environmental awareness and the creation of environmentally friendly attitudes as important public duties. The Ministry of Health issued a 3-year programme for National Environmental Hygiene that reflects on environmental education as well. This programme aims to prevent local environmental risks involving regional medical centres, local commissions of environmental protection, educational services and institutions. The county pedagogical institutes shall disseminate the results of the programme.

In 1998 the most important professional NGOs established the national educational strategy for environmental education. (Vásárhelyi T- Victor A., 2004.) This strategy was reissued in 2003 for the second time based on the work of 22 NGOs and the co-operation of civic and public administration experts. The main purpose of the publication was to describe the main issues and highlight possible solutions.

The most important principle of the document is that all citizens are interested and targeted in the learning process of the future and environmental education means an element of life-long learning covering the entire spectrum of society and economy.

The Ministry of Education issued a guide in 2001 to support teachers in integrating the actual content of environmental education into traditional school subjects or to develop a unique new subject focusing on the environment.

The Ministry of Education issued a Mid-term Strategy for Public Education, which contributes to the design of institutional curricular development and to the harmonisation of institutional, regional and national development priorities and programmes. This strategy is in line with the National Development Plan HRD OP, which defines sustainable development as its horizontal priority.

The introduction of a two-level secondary school leaving examination system is an important part of Hungarian public educational reforms. The priorities of the new system include all related examination requirements to sustainable environmental know-how both in humanities and natural sciences. The new set of examination questions is expected to inspire secondary schools to provide their pupils with new aspects of environmental and sustainable development issues. Another important element of the education reform is the accessibility of ICT-tools and the introduction of personal competences related to them. The Ministry of Education supports an important electronic database, Sulinet Digital Knowledge Base, which is accessible through the Internet to pupils, teachers and the general public.

Hungarian museums employ qualified museum teachers and they offer a wide range of cooperation for the educational institutions in the field of museum pedagogy and related interactive and project-based learning situation for all visiting groups of learners.

Hungarian zoos and game parks also conduct intensive environmental education programmes. They are normally specialised for kindergartens and school groups in zoo environment, where the animals' repatriation programmes, the conversation of protected species, the maintenance of gene bank functions, and reflection on local and global natural conversation issues are in focus. Hungarian zoos have established intensive co-operation with the International Association of Zoo-educators and the Association of Hungarian Zoos joined several projects and hosted international conferences.

2.5.4. The HRD-conditions for Environmental Education – The Domain of Teacher Training

The most important assets of environmental education in Hungary, as elsewhere, are the professional knowledge and attitudes of teachers.

There is no comprehensive and co-ordinated scheme for Hungarian in-service teacher training in the field of environmental education. There are nevertheless a number of courses in several teacher-training institutions (at kindergarten and primary school teacher training colleges).

Over the last few years a number of specialised literature, CD-ROMs and studies have been published and several educational reviews contain studies on issues related to environmental education. There is a wide selection of web sites maintained by specialist NGOs, educational and environmental protection institutions. However, gaps in the foreign language competences of the Hungarian teaching community pose a serious obstacle to accessing international electronic and printed resources.

2.5.5. Trends in Hungarian Environmental Education

Based on the amended Act on Public Education in 2003 several new pedagogical programmes have been modifiedand a national model programme for environment education has been circulated to all schools from the Ministry of Education with the purpose of enhancing the elaboration of local pedagogical programmes. This document includes UN documents (Education for Sustainability) as well as background materials to the reforms of the educational legislation. The document aims to enhance co-ordinated educational efforts in the field of education for sustainable development.

The National Core Programme of Pre-Primary Education, the National Core Curriculum and the Guide to Frame Curricula, the accredited in-service teacher training programmes as well as the support provided for forest-schools are all designed to help public educational institutions to develop good practice for the education for sustainable development and for the shaping of “environmentally aware citizen”.

International educational research and co-operation for professional development are greatly valued by the European countries in the area of education for sustainability. The EU-integration provides new frameworks for co-operation in environmental protection as well as for educational research and development, which improve the adoption of effective teaching methods, contents and the harmonisation of learning requirements.

There is a multitude of working partnerships and they serve as instrumental tools for international knowledge management. Outstanding initiatives include OECD's Environment and School Initiatives (ENSI), the network for School Development through Environmental Education (SEED), the GLOBE and the Science Across Europe educational networks. Hungary has developed a network for eco-schools within the framework of OECD ENSI in 2001 (www.okoiskola.hu) and this provides the main source for educational innovation for Hungarian environmental pedagogy.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Water Management and the Ministry of Education have jointly elaborated and issued a call for proposals to win the title “eco-school” based on the criteria set by the OECD ENSI network in Europe. All winners are members of the Eco-School Network and are eligible to receive public subsidy to achieve their set objectives. These Hungarian eco-schools are the flagship institutions for education for sustainable development, where important projects of innovation and knowledge transfer are running, and their results are accessible in printed and electronic publications as well as in conferences.

This area of education in Hungary is supported by legislation and financial support initiatives, which arise from both the educational administration as well as from NGOs and professional bodies. The legislative framework strongly supports the strengthening of environmental education and professional stakeholders welcome the integration process to the UNESCO initiative “Decade for Education of Sustainability 2005-2015” (UNESCO, 2002.)

The public educational institutions have developed a wide range of quality assurance frameworks that cover the assessment of environmental education as well. International co-operation, the networks of eco-schools, GLOBE, Science Across Europe, and the Comenius programme greatly enhance the enrichment of professional knowledge-transfer, mutual learning and capital of contacts.

The National Strategy for Environmental Education is widely appreciated and the Hungarian Association for Environmental Education launched a widespread initiative for “school-greening” aiming to enlarge school-based and extracurricular environmental educational good practice.

The SULINOVA Centre for Programme Development and In-service Teacher Training shall shortly publish comprehensive educational packages that contain teaching and learning elements for the concept of sustainability, references to support networks and related in-service teacher training capacities to maintain quality assurance.

These trends and initiatives provide a synergic impact and pave way to strengthening the education for sustainability in Hungary for the future.