ONEPlanet DTP - Enacting education for sustainable development (ESD) in the Mekong River Delta region of Vietnam through an international, collaborative approach (OP2171)

Schools are uniquely placed to educate and influence, developing children towards alternative futures and changing behaviour and views in their families and wider community (Percy-Smith & Burns, 2013). This potential has been long recognised in the context of education for sustainable development (ESD), by a range of actors, including governments (UK’s Sustainable Development Commission, SDC, 2011; Vietnam’s Prime Minister, 2019) and other organisations (Mwendwa, 2017; Woolner, 2016). However it is notable that in the most far-reaching legislation recently enacted in Vietnam (Government Resolution 120, 2017) hardly mentions education beyond highlighting that standards are lower than elsewhere in Vietnam.

ESD is growing in global South settings facing the most acute challenges from climate change, but there is a lack of data and evidence assessing it, with risks that local approaches largely derive from Euro/American experiences. This studentship addresses these gaps in knowledge by asking:
1) What is the potential for ESD for helping to address specific environmental challenges on the Mekong River Delta (MRD)?
2) What are the mechanisms through which ESD policymakers and practitioners in the MRD can access and utilise data to widen understanding of unique challenges within rapidly changing delta environments?
3) To what extent, and through what mechanisms, can information gained about the experience of young delta dewellers in the MRD build understanding of climate change locally and globally?
In the context of Vietnam’s teacher education for ESD, the benefits of participatory and experiential approaches are beginning to be suggested (Kieu & Singer, 2017). In contrast, the success of mandated ‘education for sustainability’ in the UK context, has been questioned (Ofsted, 2008). Studying educational change makes clear that successful change requires coordinated action at various levels in a system, avoiding policy being seen as monolithic and practitioners as resistant (Priestley et al., 2011). Accordingly, there is a need to understand and evaluate ESD in Vietnam in the context of both wider changes to education, and the use and availability of up-to-date scientific data on the changing climate.
This project will a) analyse ESD practices in The Mekong River Delta, working with schools and wider stakeholders to develop understanding of the development of policy and its impacts in schools b) develop a critical analysis of the kinds of environmental knowledge and data that is drawn upon in designing ESD approaches and materials c) develop international dialogues between schools in the MRD region of Vietnam and the north east of England to analyse how experiences of changing climates in vulnerable regions can shape the development of transnational approaches to ESD that highlight and emphasise shared experiences of the Anthropocene.