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Skills for sustainable development: Transforming vocational education and training beyond 2015

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  • McGrath, Simon
  • Powell, Lesley

Abstract

There have been recent calls to transform VET and to transform development. This double call leads us to ask how can skills development best support development that is sustainable for individuals, communities and the planet, and which promotes social justice and poverty reduction. In considering this question, we critique the idea of green skills for the green economy as being inadequate for achieving a transformed and transformative VET that shifts the target from economic growth to the wellbeing of individuals and that enables vocational education to play a role in challenging and transforming society and work. Rather, we argue that we must see human development and sustainable development as inseparable, and plan and evaluate VET for its contribution to these. Such an approach must be grounded in a view of work, and hence skills for work, that is decent, life-enhancing, solidaristic, environmentally-sensitive and intergenerationally-aware. It must confront the reality that much current VET is complicit in preparing people for work that lacks some or all of these characteristics. It must be concerned with poverty, inequality and injustice and contribute to their eradication. It must be supportive of individuals' agency, whilst also reflecting a careful reading of the structures that too often constrain them. In doing all this it must minimise the costs and risks of any transformation for the poor and seek to lock them into better individual and communal lives, not out of them. Finally, it must transform skills, work and the world in ways that are truly sustainable of the people of today but also of those who are to inhabit the earth tomorrow.

Suggested Citation

  • McGrath, Simon & Powell, Lesley, 2016. "Skills for sustainable development: Transforming vocational education and training beyond 2015," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 12-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:50:y:2016:i:c:p:12-19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2016.05.006
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Nandini Gooptu, 2018. "JSAD Special Issue on Skill Development in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(3), pages 241-248, December.
    3. Jorrit Holst & Antje Brock & Mandy Singer-Brodowski & Gerhard de Haan, 2020. "Monitoring Progress of Change: Implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within Documents of the German Education System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, May.
    4. McGrath, Simon & Alla-Mensah, Joyceline & Langthaler, Margarita, 2018. "Skills for decent work, life and sustainable development: Vocational education and the sustainable development goals," Briefing Papers 18, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    5. Langthaler, Margarita & McGrath, Simon & Ramsarup, Presha, 2021. "Skills for green and just transitions: Reflecting on the role of vocational education and training for sustainable development," Briefing Papers 30, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    6. Assunta Di Vaio & Luisa Varriale & Angelo Di Gregorio & Samuel Adomako, 2022. "Corporate social performance and non‐financial reporting in the cruise industry: Paving the way towards UN Agenda 2030," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(6), pages 1931-1953, November.
    7. Crossley, Michael & King, Kenneth & McGrath, Simon & Watson, Keith, 2020. "Possibilities and priorities for IJED in times of uncertainty: A 40th anniversary analysis," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    8. Mandy Singer-Brodowski & Nadine Etzkorn & Janne Von Seggern, 2019. "One Transformation Path Does Not Fit All—Insights into the Diffusion Processes of Education for Sustainable Development in Different Educational Areas in Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, January.

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