{"id":435,"date":"2011-02-24T09:33:28","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T08:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=435"},"modified":"2011-02-24T09:33:28","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T08:33:28","slug":"dont-mention-the-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/02\/24\/dont-mention-the-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Don't mention the Decade!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I gave a seminar in the University on Tuesday to Mark my retirement. \u00a0A little late, of course, but that was just about scheduling. \u00a0I talked about the way that an interest in sustainability and learning had developed over the last 9 years since my inaugural professorial lecture in April 2002, and tried to look to where the successes had been [ HEFCE & DCSF ] and what had been much less successful [ HEA & LSC\/SFA\/LSIS\/etc. ], and why this was the case. \u00a0I looked across schools, colleges and universities in doing this. \u00a0Not many jokes, someone complained, and somebody else said, you didn't mention the Decade, and I suddenly realised that this was so. \u00a0Not deliberate, but I'd just not given it a thought. \u00a0Dear me!<\/em><\/p>\n

But why<\/em>, I now wonder.<\/p>\n

Well, I was talking about changes in UK (mostly English as it happens) policy and practice, and it seems to me that all the successful policy shifts were internally\u00a0pushed<\/em> by very able senior managers, who were convinced that a focus on sustainability was hugely important, and who worked closely (and strategically)\u00a0with experts in collaboration with well-managed formal and informal advisory groups. \u00a0And it does seem to me that the very limited external pull<\/em> that the Decade can offer provided next to no traction for these processes. \u00a0 This is not<\/em> to say that the Decade isn't an international activity worthy of note, or that the UK ESD reports have no usefulness, but let's not pretend that these have contributed much strategy\u00a0to English education (for sustainable development) successes and failures. \u00a0 And before anyone asks, yes, I do wonder (once again) whether I'm the best person to chair the UK National Commission's ESD Co-ordinating Group and Forum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I gave a seminar in the University on Tuesday to Mark my retirement. \u00a0A little late, of course, but that was just about scheduling. \u00a0I talked about the way that an interest in sustainability and learning had developed over the...<\/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":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talks-and-presentations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","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=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}