{"id":5553,"date":"2014-01-24T12:56:30","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T12:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=5553"},"modified":"2014-04-27T09:04:43","modified_gmt":"2014-04-27T09:04:43","slug":"another-day-another-sustainability-literacy-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/01\/24\/another-day-another-sustainability-literacy-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Another day; another sustainability literacy test"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The problem is: whenever some dodgy concept \u2013 like <em>sustainability literacy<\/em> \u2013 emerges out of the many febrile imaginations tired of day-time TV, inevitably someone decides it has to be measured. \u00a0I was alerted to the latest example today by eagle-eyed correspondents.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainabilitytest.org\/en\/substainability_home\">Here<\/a> it is. \u00a0And it comes with more acronyms attached than you could shake a STICK [1] at. \u00a0Just look at them: there's the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainabilitytest.org\/dev\/senior_advisory_board.html\">SAB<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainabilitytest.org\/dev\/regional_comittee.html\">RNEC<\/a> to start with. \u00a0Just bewildering.<\/p>\n<p>The website blurb says <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainabilitytest.org\/en\/the_test#test1\">this<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000080\">The \u201cSustainability Literacy Test\u201d is a tool for the various initiatives on sustainability lead (sic) by HEIs to assess and verify the sustainability literacy of their\u00a0students when they graduate. \u00a0It assesses the <strong>minimum level knowledge<\/strong> in economic, social and environmental responsibility for higher education students, applicable all over the world, in any kind of Higher Education Institution (HEI), in any country, studying any kind of tertiary-level course (Bachelors, Masters, MBAs, PhD).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is <em>quite<\/em> a claim. \u00a0However, it gets better (or much worse depending on your point of view).<\/p>\n<p>There's a helpful page on how it all\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainabilitytest.org\/en\/the_test#test1\">works<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #000080\">All of the questions in this assessment will ensure that future graduates have basic knowledge on sustainable development and both individual and Organisational sustainability and responsibility. For this purpose, the scope of this assessment covers 2 types of question:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000080\">Questions on <strong>challenges facing society and the planet<\/strong> i.e. general knowledge on social, environmental and economic issues, basic understanding of the earth e.g. water and carbon cycles, greenhouse effect etc.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000080\">Questions on the <strong>Organisation\u2019s responsibility<\/strong> in general and on corporate responsibility in particular i.e. questions on <strong>practices<\/strong> for integrating social responsibility throughout an Organisation and questions on the responsibility of individuals as employees and citizens.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\">In order to be easy to use worldwide, a Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) format has been chosen. \u00a0\u202850 MCQs are randomly selected out of among a wide range. Of those questions, 2\/3 are related to Supra\/International level (global warming for instance) and 1\/3 linked to national\/regional level (i.e. local regulations and laws, culture and practices). The test takes 30 minutes.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Easy, really. \u00a0The first sentence (which I had to read 3 times to make sure it really was saying this) is complete rubbish, unless the organisers see institutions teaching to a test they have no responsibly for. \u00a0Maybe they are mutton-headed enough to think this. \u00a0If so; they completely misunderstand universities and have no business doing any of this \u2013 well, they haven't any business, anyway, whatever their understanding is.<\/p>\n<p>As for the questions (which I cannot access), judging by the bullet points, above, these are going to be the usual tired stuff about how the earth works and what corporate ethics ought to be. \u00a0I fear that Oscar Wild's aphorism will apply with force: <em>in examinations, the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Notes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>[1] <strong><span style=\"color: #000080\">STICK<\/span><\/strong> is the <strong><span style=\"color: #000080\">S<\/span><\/strong>ociety for <strong><span style=\"color: #000080\">T<\/span><\/strong>raducing <strong><span style=\"color: #000080\">I<\/span><\/strong>nternational <strong><span style=\"color: #000080\">C<\/span><\/strong>onceptual <strong><span style=\"color: #000080\">K<\/span><\/strong>norms. \u00a0It is based in Poughkeepsie, VA. [ www.stick.edu ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The problem is: whenever some dodgy concept \u2013 like sustainability literacy \u2013 emerges out of the many febrile imaginations tired of day-time TV, inevitably someone decides it has to be measured. \u00a0I was alerted to the latest example today by...<\/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-5553","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\/5553","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=5553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}