Katie Jump is the Course Leader of NITE’s MA in Education. She also supervises those completing action research projects for their MA. Here Katie explains why she is convinced that our Contemporary Issues in Global Education pathway offers an important opportunity not just for students but also the sector. It is available as MA, PG diploma or PG certificate.
Why Contemporary Issues in Global Education?
In a world where educational challenges are shared across borders, Contemporary Issues in Global Education offers a timely, research rich, and globally connected learning experience-one that prepares educators to think systemically, act ethically, and lead with insight in an increasingly interconnected world. Discussing topics such as sustainable education, this new pathway (launching in September 2026), offers new and experienced teachers the chance to discuss the most pressing questions in education today.
Is sustainability education fit for purpose?
Sustainability education’s fitness for purpose depends fundamentally on how we define that purpose. If the aim is simply to raise awareness of environmental issues, then many current approaches might appear adequate. However, if the purpose is to equip learners to navigate, critique and transform a world facing accelerating climate risks, ecological degradation and deepening social inequities, then the expectations are far more demanding.
Against this more ambitious benchmark, sustainability education shows promising developments but remains insufficiently robust, coherent, or transformative to meet the scale of contemporary challenges.
Strengths in the current landscape
There are, undeniably, important strengths in the current landscape. Sustainability has gained significant policy recognition through frameworks such as UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, which have encouraged national systems, including the UK’s, to embed climate literacy and global citizenship within curricula. Alongside this, young people themselves are increasingly environmentally conscious, and their activism has pushed institutions to take sustainability more seriously.
Pedagogical innovation is also emerging, with project based learning, outdoor education and whole school approaches offering more authentic and experiential forms of engagement. In some cases, schools and universities are beginning to model sustainability through their own operations, creating environments where learning is reinforced by institutional practice.
Persistent challenges and structural weaknesses
Despite these positive developments, significant structural weaknesses persist. Sustainability education is often fragmented and inconsistently delivered, frequently treated as an optional add-on rather than a cross curricular entitlement.
Provision varies widely between schools, subjects and regions, and is often dependent on the enthusiasm of individual teachers rather than systemic expectation. This leads to inequitable learning experiences and undermines the coherence of students’ understanding. Additionally, many programmes remain overly focused on knowledge acquisition while neglecting the deeper competencies required for meaningful action.
Skills such as systems thinking, political literacy, ethical reasoning and collective agency are often marginalised, resulting in learners who may be well informed but feel disempowered to act.
The role of teacher confidence and capability
Teacher confidence represents another major barrier. Many educators report limited subject knowledge, uncertainty about how to handle controversial issues and concerns about being perceived as political.
Without sustained, well-resourced professional development, teachers cannot be expected to deliver the kind of interdisciplinary, justice centred sustainability education that current global conditions demand. Compounding this is the frequent misalignment between what schools teach and what they practise.
Institutions may promote sustainability in the classroom while operating inefficient buildings, procuring unsustainably, or generating significant waste. Such contradictions weaken the credibility of sustainability messages and reduce the authenticity of learning experiences.
The missing dimension: justice and intersectionality
A further limitation lies in the insufficient attention given to justice and intersectionality. Sustainability is still too often framed narrowly as an environmental issue, rather than as a complex interplay of ecological, social, economic and ethical dimensions. This omission restricts students’ understanding of climate justice, global inequity, colonial legacies and intergenerational responsibility; issues that are central to any transformative vision of sustainability.
Reimagining sustainability education from the future
For sustainability education to be genuinely fit for purpose, it must be reimagined as a systemic, whole institution endeavour. This would require embedding sustainability across the curriculum as a lens through which all subjects are taught, rather than as a discrete topic. It would involve shifting from a focus on content to the development of competencies such as collaborative problem solving and critical hope.
Schools and universities would need to model sustainability through their governance, procurement, and campus operations, ensuring that institutional practice reinforces educational aims. Learners would need to be empowered as agents of change through authentic projects, community partnerships and opportunities to influence school policy.
Crucially, educators would require comprehensive training that equips them to teach sustainability confidently. On this pathway, we will look at a range of issues and challenges educators face when implementing a sustainability curriculum, ranging from acquiring the knowledge needed to address difficult topics to negotiating different beliefs about climate change.
