Education for sustainable development: Review of a curriculum audit in Wales

Review of a curriculum audit carried out by institutions following the Welsh Assembly Government's Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship strategy for action.

The Welsh Assembly Government strategy incluudes an action plan for 2006-09 with a renewal planned for 2010-2014. Delivery of the strategy and action plan is co-ordinated by an ESDGC champion for Wales. The champion works closely with the Welsh institutional ESDGC network group which meets regularly and has representatives from all the HE institutions in Wales. One of the actions required is for ‘HEIs to undertake a self-analysis of where ESDGC is being taught within their institution and where it could be further incorporated’. In response a small number of institutions conducted internal surveys in 2006–07 of their curriculum. Then in 2008 the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) sponsored a nationwide review of ESDGC in curricula using the STAUNCH (Sustainable Teaching Audit for University Curricula in Higher Education) audit tool developed by the Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University.