The Fundisa for Change Conference and Launch at Emperor’s Palace/Johannesburg, 27-28 Feb. 2014, launched the Fundisa for Change Network (www.fundisaforchange.co.za), a South African Network created to “enhance transformative environmental learning through teacher education”. To achieve this overall objective four areas of intervention are being looked at:
- teacher capacity building,
- policy and advocacy to improve take-up of environmental learning,
- expand the network of providers and the community of practice, and
- strengthen and review curriculum and learning and teaching support materials, esp. textbooks.
The conference therefore put great emphasis on the launch of new environmental teacher education materials. This happened under the auspices of the South African Department of Environmental Affairs. Both the Director General and the Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs gave introductory remarks about the importance of the initiative on the two days. Approximately 200 people from universities, Provincial and National Government Departments of Basic Education, Environmental Affairs and Higher Education and educational NGOs attended.
The role of GIZ in the roll-out of a training of trainers programme in 2013 as part of the Fundisa for Change Network was widely acknowledged. GIZ through its Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Programme financed seven provincial training of trainer workshops in South Africa, strengthened the Expert Network and offered two leadership trainings in Germany in 2011/2012 and 2012/2013. With its international focus on Mexico, Germany, India, and South Africa, on local and international learning, cooperation processes and dialogue opportunities the ESD programme also contributed to the success of Fundisa for Change.
The conference was a mix of plenary and parallel sessions all linked to the four areas of intervention mentioned above. Considerable time was also spent on the introduction of six newly-developed sets of teacher education materials, namely
“Life Skills - Teaching Healthy Living”; “Natural Science - Teaching Life and Living”; “Natural Science and Technology - Teaching Indigenous Knowledge and Technology”; “Natural Sciences- Teaching Climate Change”; “Geography - Teaching Water”; and lastly “Life sciences- Teaching Marine Biodiversity”.
All of the South African members of the Expert Network, Waheeda Carvello, Department of Basic Education; Dr Jim Taylor, Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa; Prof Esther Kibuka, University of South Africa; Pandelani Dzhugudzha, Department of Environmental Affairs; Prof. Rob O’ Donoghue, Rhodes University, played prominent roles in the management of the conference together with the Coordinator of Fundisa, Zintle Songqwaru, and a wide range of other academics and practitioners. GIZ was represented by Anja Frings, the responsible project manager of the GIZ ESD programme for the South Africa component and the programme director of the bilateral Skills for Green Jobs programme Edda Grunwald as well as her colleague Karola Swart.
The conference provided an excellent opportunity to see a community of practice at work with many contributors to the improvement of environmental learning in South Africa. There was an overwhelming positive response to the GIZ- funded ESD Programme which is coming to an end in June 2014. ESD practitioners are keen to see the process being taken further in order to meet new educational challenges either under the banner of ESD or within the debate on the international sustainable development goals still to be developed.
Thilo Thormeyer, consultant for the GIZ- ESD programme, South Africa, March 2014