{"id":3246,"date":"2013-02-11T09:33:17","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T09:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=3246"},"modified":"2013-02-11T09:33:17","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T09:33:17","slug":"the-quality-industry-and-education-for-unsustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2013\/02\/11\/the-quality-industry-and-education-for-unsustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quality Industry and Education for Unsustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading my way through the material produced by the QAA and a clutch of universities in the online Guide<\/a> to Quality and Education for Sustainability in HE.<\/em><\/p>\n

I began with the various video talking heads, and I was struck by Anthony McClaran\u2019s comments<\/a> on the importance of the project in locating education for sustainability<\/em> as a quality assurance issue. \u00a0This is part of what he said:<\/p>\n

\"What we are seeing, is an increasing awareness of ways in which, in order to embed sustainability, it needs to be thought though in terms of quality assurance<\/em>.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is unsurprising that McClaran (and QAA) think like that, given that\u00a0everything that\u2019s taught in universities now has to be thought though in terms of quality assurance. \u00a0C<\/em>learly, many academics and HE managers see it that way as well, and this seems to be the premise behind the HEFCE-funded LMF project<\/a>: Leading Curriculum Change for Sustainability: Strategic Approaches to Quality Enhancement<\/em>, which gave rise to the Guide.<\/p>\n

Certainly, there is something in this. \u00a0But there is (at least) one other way of thinking about it all.\u00a0 For example, McClaran (or someone) might have said:<\/p>\n

\"In order to make quality systems fit for purpose in the world we now inhabit, they need to be thought though in terms of sustainability.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And surely, there is something in that as well, and it was this point<\/a> I made when the QAA\u2019s Quality Code first appeared \u2013 here <\/a>is a\u00a0further\u00a0point I made about the QAA's response to the consultation.<\/p>\n

It seems to me that how quality systems are currently operationalised within institutions fits pretty well with the educational status quo; <\/em>indeed, institutions manage 'Quality' in order to do this. <\/em>But, given that what goes on at the moment is much more education for un<\/span>sustainability, than EfS, it has to be a problem that our current emphasis on quality doesn't push universities towards being more sustainability-focused in terms of vision, purposes and operation.<\/p>\n

And so I do wonder what the point is in changing EfS \/ ESD to fit with how we see quality, when quality itself hasn't changed at all to fit with the sustainability imperative.<\/p>\n

No doubt someone will be able to enlighten me about why this view is wrong. \u00a0Meanwhile, I'm keeping Stephen Sterling in mind ...<\/p>\n

\"... the effect of patterns of unsustainability on our current and future prospects is so pressing that the response of higher education should not be predicated only on the integration of sustainability into higher education, because this invites a limited, adaptive, response. \u00a0Rather, ... we need to see the relationship the other way round \u2013 that is, the necessary transformation of higher education towards the integrative and more whole state implied by a systemic view of sustainability in education and society, however difficult this may be to<\/em> realise<\/em>.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sterling SR (2004) Higher Education, Sustainability and the Role of Systemic Learning. In PB Corcoran & AEJ Walls (Eds) Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability: problematics, promise and practice. \u00a0Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Press<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading my way through the material produced by the QAA and a clutch of universities in the online Guide to Quality and Education for Sustainability in HE. I began with the various video talking heads, and I was...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}