Why empowering teachers is key to a sustainable future. Education systems must transform to meet the demands of students who are calling for transformative education that addresses sustainable development.

Target 7 of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 4 on Quality Education (SDG 4.7) calls for "all learners to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development", including areas like climate and environmental education, global citizenship education, and human rights education.

At the United Nations Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, 114 countries submitted National Statements of Commitment to advance and transform education.

• Seventy-nine of those country commitments refer to
• education for sustainable development or associated
• themes, such as global citizenship education
• and 21st-century skills.

Many education systems have also introduced innovative policies to bring these topics into the classroom. Belize announced at the summit that it was integrating a dedicated socio-emotional learning programme into its early childhood curriculum. Greece introduced its compulsory Skills Lab module in 2021, teaching students across the country the hard and soft skills they need to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Meanwhile, climate change, environmentalism, and sustainability themes have been part of the Costa Rican primary and secondary school curriculum for at least a decade. And at the sub-national level, in 2020, America's New Jersey became the first state in the country to set standards for interdisciplinary climate change education in its K-12 public schools.

At the United Nations Transforming Education Summit in September 2022, 114 countries submitted National Statements of Commitment to advance and transform education. (For Representation)

But commitments do not always result in action, and policies do not always translate into impact. Despite the inspiring examples set by Greece, Costa Rica and others, most systems struggle to make meaningful progress towards transformative education for sustainable development.

The roadblocks are universal, including curricula largely based on passive instead of experiential learning and mechanical and top-down approaches that ignore the imperative to adapt to special needs and circumstances. Teachers who lack adequate training in sustainable development to be able to effectively impart its corresponding knowledge, skills, and values is another hurdle.

One example of these roadblocks comes from Malaysia, where researchers from the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) conducted a pilot study to assess the extent to which education for sustainable development has become mainstream in the national education system. The study revealed that, while major policy documents like the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 show priorities consistent with the principles of education for sustainable development — active learning, critical thinking, leadership, ethics, multiculturalism, and future-readiness — implementation is short on the ground. Similarly, primary school curricula and textbooks for science, English, and Malay language include references to themes of environmental protection and social inclusion, but these themes are not explicitly linked with students' lived realities or the greater societal need for sustainable development.