Integrating Education for Sustainable Development Competencies in Teacher Education

The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the publications focused on integrating education for sustainable development (ESD) competencies into teacher education during the last decade, in an endeavour to identify which competencies have been considered in the literature as key competencies for reorienting teacher education towards sustainability as well as explore the suggested assessment tools and approaches to integrate these competencies into teacher education programmes. The results show increased attention during the last decade to develop a set of ESD competencies for teachers, which reveals the absence of a unified framework for teacher competencies for ESD. However, the extent to which these competencies are effectively integrated into teacher education remains an undiscovered area. This paper highlights the progress and gaps in the research related to mainstreaming ESD competencies in teacher education, providing evidence from the literature that can inform policy and strategy improvement in higher education institutions.

Automated summary

The study reveals an increased focus on ESD competencies for teachers in the past decade, but a lack of consensus on a unified framework for defining these competencies. The effectiveness of integrating these competencies into teacher education programs remains a relatively unexplored area. The research also highlights progress and gaps in mainstreaming ESD competencies in teacher education, offering insights for policy and strategic improvements in higher education institutions.