Transforming Education Area and Competency Hub for Sustainable Development

The TEACH4SD project aims to lead the development, test and validation of best and next practices of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). For sustainability transitions to become successful, it is the guiding principle for TEACH4SD to empower and educate teachers to take on a leading role as change-makers and thereby contribute to the European ambition that the green transition be socially fair and just.

TEACH4SD will establish and lead a new European consortium of HEIs and VET institutions and industry representatives. This consortium will share experiences from the joint development of ESD, which will empower European students and a future work force through the green skills and competences needed to successfully make a sustainable transition and transformation.

TEACH4SD will launch five regional Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs), each responding to the needs, requirements and challenges of one of five occupational fields forming part of the backbone of the European labour market: health, trade, entrepreneurship, clothing & textiles, and construction. The link between the five CoVEs is through a Digital Hub for collaboration, networking, and mobility.

TEACH4SD is a 4-year project supported by the Erasmus+ programme, aiming to develop, test, and validate Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) practices. TEACH4SD empowers teachers with essential skills for teaching sustainable development, and mobilizes industry and research capacities to promote ESD.

TEACH4SD has six main objectives:

1. To carry out a state-of-the-art review on ESD in combination with a systematic needs assessment and skills gap analysis for the purposes of developing and delivering an ESD road map.

2. To design a methodology and concept for the purposes of developing and delivering educational material prototypes addressing the challenges and opportunities identified by the road map.

3. To transfer concept and educational material prototypes to the five CoVEs for each to carry out roll-out implementation and deliver quality input for concept validation and refinement in collaboration with industry partners.

4. To establish and facilitate a corps of certified ambassadors and institutions appointed to be ‘capacity builders’ and ESD agents of transformation in VET institutions, higher education and industry.

5. Consolidate results to develop and deliver long-term eco-systems for reskilling and upskilling based on validated roll-out of implementation pilots and by feedback forms, learning loops from ambassadors andinstitutions.

6. To establish and launch a European Centre of Vocational Excellence Platform, containing an open access Digital ESD Academy for community and network building, knowledge sharing and capacity building within and beyond the five regional CoVEs.