Exploring the Priorities of Teacher Education Related Policies: an Education for Sustainable Development Perspective

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for many is considered to be a 'quality education' in its own right. There also exist many debates around the semantics and implications of such an education, however this study acknowledges the greater intentions of ESD and thus deems it necessary to analyze to what degree teacher education related policies promote ESD. The study carried out a content analysis of the major policies that guide teacher education and teacher education development in South Africa. An ESD analytical framework which was developed from an analysis of pivotal ESD literature was used. The analyses vary from a subtle to a very potent operationalization of the developed framework due to the varying policy structures. Direct and indirect applications of ESD principles were identified across policies revealing major inefficiencies with regards to meaningful ESD address. The main findings of the study refer to policy inefficiencies with regards to: (1) the promotion of ESD teaching and learning approaches; (2) the connection of ESD skills and values to ESD issues/knowledge content; (3) understanding the complexities of the interactions between the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society and nature) in covering sustainability issues/concepts; and finally (4) the policy focus on societal and economic development. These findings reveal that although policy documents guiding teacher education and development do not actively prevent teachers and teacher education from focusing on ESD, they at the same rate do not provide sufficient objectives or guidelines towards its realization and implementation.