Abstract:

According to the United Nations (UN), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aims to help people to develop the attitudes, skills and knowledge to make informed decisions for the benefit of themselves and others, now and in the future, and to act upon these decisions. The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), seeks to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning, in order to address the social, economic, cultural and environmental problems we face in the 21st century. Its primary goal is to encourage Governments to consider the inclusion of measures to implement the Decade in their respective education systems and national development plans.
According to the objectives of the Decade, in which mid-point we currently find ourselves, there was an ESD training programme for primary and secondary teachers organised at Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica (Slovakia). The training was a part of a scientific project of the Department of Environmental Studies named “Development of multi-level management skills of ESD coordinators in the region of Banská Bystrica“ and recieved its funding from the University Grant Agency.
The aim of the project was to increase the range and quality of lifelong education of teachers in the field of ESD. The project aimed to develop and strengthen management skills of teaching staff (coordinators of environmental education) needed to implement ESD into schools. In the training, the concept of ESD was explored through a variety of different approaches (from natural, pedagogical to social sciences).
This paper reports the aim and the agenda of this training programme. It describes knowledge and management skills acquired by teachers after completing the training. The paper also presents the training outcomes and the feedback from training’s participants, who were given questionnaries to evaluate the efficiency of this training programme. The article informs about how Slovak teachers evaluate the current state of lifelong education for teachers in the field of ESD in the Slovak Republic, what they miss in this field and what they consider as sufficient or not needed.
At the end of the paper we try to make some recommendations for future ESD training programmes based on the questionnaire study results and our experience during the training.

Keywords:

Education for sustainable development, management skills.