An International Study on ESD Evaluation in Asia-Pacific Countries: Exploring an Empowering Evaluation Approach

Abstract

  Upon the launch of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD), various activities envisaging a sustainable society have been conducted all over the world. Now that the first half of UNDESD has transpired, it is an urgent task to develop evaluation methods suitable for ESD. This paper examines the outcomes and challenges of the “HOPE” evaluation method that the Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU) co-developed with ESD experts and practioners in order to support small-scale ESD projects.

  ACCU is entrusted by UNESCO to carry out the Asia-Pacific Innovation Programme for ESD with a view to nurturing 10 grassroots ESD projects across the region. At the end of the two-year project cycle, ACCU, in collaboration with like-minded experts and practioners of ESD, entered into developing an alternative approach to evaluation. Supposing that ESD is an experimental approach to shift the paradigm of education, it follows that evaluation approaches to ESD should also undergo a similar paradigm shift. With this notion, an experimental evaluation approach called the “HOPE” method came into being.

  As its acronym suggests (Holistic, Participatory and Empowering), the method is based on a philosophy that underlies a holistic value, employs participatory approaches, and aims to empower people engaged in evaluation activities. The method comprises field research and questionnaire-based survey. The former, valuing dialogue and descriptive narrative as a qualitative research, includes focus group discussion, individual interview, discussion with key stakeholders, project observation, and feedback session. Feedback sessions conducted at each target site characterize the method well, serving as a platform for mutual learning and reflection. The questionnaire is also unique, attempting to quantify key ESD characteristics in terms of knowledge, skill, value, and attitude. Furthermore, the method introduces the “Hope Timeline”, with a view to revealing changes in respondents’ hopeful attitudes and behaviors under a difficult situation so as to construct a sustainable society. With these unique components, the “HOPE” evaluation was carried out from August to December 2008.

  International evaluation teams comprising several experts and practioners of ESD headed for the target countries where the Innovation Programme for ESD was conducted, namely: Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Thailand, Palau, and Viet Nam, where the teams conducted interviews with approximately 390 respondents. In addition, the teams received questionnaire responses from more than 700 learners from Bhutan, China, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Palau, Uzbekistan, and Viet Nam.

  One outstanding outcome of among many that the evaluation survey revealed is that the level of hope has been increasing in all target countries since the ESD project was launched. This is a significant finding, considering that the gap of hope is widening in many countries. Moreover, the survey shows that the target learners have acquired higher-order thinking skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and others. For example, farmers in Bhutan who participated in the ESD project as literacy learners had an opportunity to reflect on their farming practices using tools like a scoring board to enhance analytical thinking, and improved their skills in not only literacy but also thinking, and even confidence. This helped them to consider more effective farming practices as the first step towards creating a sustainable society. Similarly, in Thailand, elementary school students with difficult backgrounds, such as members of minority hill tribes, the poor, and orphans of HIV/AIDS participated in the project and learned how to investigate and reflect upon their own communities. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)