Abstract:

The climate emergency has made the quest for a more rapid, solid and collective action to tackle its consequences more urgent and valuable than ever before. As scientists are continuously providing evidence-based information on the patterns of climate change through sophisticated new technologies and digital monitoring tools, human societies are called to deliberate on these resources and generate meaningful policies that will respond to the need of immediate action.

Nevertheless, not all parts of society are equally represented in those deliberation processes, while the development of sustainability competences is not a priority set for all sectors of the educational systems. In fact, the vocational education and training (VET) sector lies behind in terms of deliberation and sustainability competences development as a result of strictly market-oriented curricula and social prejudices around the educational mission that VET schools ought to fulfil in modern societies.

In this context, this report aims to highlight the need of integrating deliberation and sustainability competences in VET schools through citizen science initiatives and projects carried out as an integral part of the educational curriculum (Bonney et al, 2009; Fritz et al.,2019). Based on research studies that show the lack of deliberative processes in VET, the report will display deliberation and citizen engagement competences and practices that are deemed essential in order to educate future active and eco-conscious citizens.

In addition, the research process of this report will include the presentation of sustainability competences, as they have been outlined in Τhe European sustainability competence framework (GreenComp) (Bianchi et al., 2022). In particular, this study shows that the pursuit of sustainability competences, like promoting nature, critical thinking, adaptability and collective action (GreenComp, 2022), should be a clear-stated objective of VET courses, while citizen science should be considered as one of the most effective learning experiences able to achieve this goal.

Accordingly, the report consists of 5 sections which reflect the research approach that has been adopted towards exploring deliberation and sustainability competences development in VET. Firstly, we introduce the social and educational context that make crucial the integration of deliberative and sustainability competences in VET. Then, we present the scope and methodology of this study. Thereupon, we define “deliberation” in relation to citizen engagement, while we focus on deliberative practices that should be included in VET curricula. Next, we introduce the European sustainability competence framework, as well as the way citizen science in VET can contribute to the developement of these competences. Finally, the conclusions of this study are being presented.

References:
[1] Bonney, R., Cooper, C., Dickinson, J., Kelling, S., Phillips, T., Rosenberg, K., Shirk, J. Citizen Science: A Developing Tool for Expanding Science Knowledge and Scientific Literacy, BioScience, Volume 59, Issue 11, 2009, https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.9
[2] Fritz, S., See, L., Carlson, T. et al. Citizen science and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Nat Sustain 2, 922–930 (2019).
[3] Bianchi, G., Pisiotis, U. and Cabrera Giraldez, M., GreenComp The European sustainability competence framework, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2022, doi:10.2760/13286

Keywords:

VET, deliberation competences, sustainability competences, GreenComp, citizen science.