UNUnited Nations Economic Commission for Europe

Environment Division

EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNECE REGION
Terms of Reference
Meetings

UNECE Expert Group on Indicators

TERMS OF REFERENCE
adopted at the High-level Meeting of Environment and Education Ministries
(Vilnius, 17-18 March 2005)
Mandate

1. Pursuant to the adoption of the Strategy for education for sustainable development, the High-level Meeting establishes the ad hoc group of experts to develop indicators to measure the effectiveness of the implementation of the Strategy. The report of the group will be presented for endorsement to the Steering Committee on Education for Sustainable Development.

2. The UNECE secretariat will provide secretariat support to the group in accordance with UNECE rules and practices.

Composition

3. The members of the group should have extensive experience in national and international environmental and education policies, in environmental education and in education for sustainable development. Its composition should ensure equitable geographical representation of the UNECE member States.

4. The members of the expert group will be designated by Governments. Representatives of international organizations, in particular UNESCO, and non-governmental organizations can be invited as observers. Candidatures should be submitted to the secretariat by June 2005.

PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT OF INDICATORS

Following the extension of the mandate of the UNECE Expert Group (EG) on Indicators for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), the eighth meeting will be held at the UNESCO premises in Paris (France) from 15 to 18 September 2008. The meeting will consist of two sessions: (1) on 15 and 16 a.m. September 2008 the experts will be working on the first part of the mandate, i.e. related to the Indicators for ESD; and (2) on 16 p.m., 17 and 18 September the experts will be working on the second part of the mandate, i.e. related to the competences in ESD. For the second session of the meeting, additional experts in competences for ESD will be invited. For more information, see documents for this meeting:

Agenda (EG on ESD Indicators-8/1)
Draft Guidance for Reporting (EG on ESD Indicators-8/2)
Template for Good Practices in ESD (EG on ESD Indicators-8/3 and Add.1)
Draft outline of a publication on tools to support the review of implementation of ESD (EG on ESD Indicators-8/4)
Extract of competence-related material from the reporting format (EG on Indicators-8/5)
Template for the a proposal for a mandate for a possible expert group in competences in ESD (EG on Indicators-8/6)
Background documents
The Reporting Format (Advance copy of ECE/CEP/AC.13/2008/2/Add.1)
Discussion paper on competence in ESD in the education sector (ECE/CEP/AC.13/2008/7)
pdf 
Extract from the CSCT handbook
pdf 
Comments by two Italian Experts in Competences in ESD
OECD work on competences for ESD

 

The UNECE Steering Committee endorsed the indicators at its second meeting (4-5 December 2006) and entrusted the Expert Group with the following two tasks:

1. To revise the set of indicators as appropriate, following the pilot reporting exercise and feedback from countries on the workability and feasibility of the indicators and the requested information for reporting

2. Further to the relevant outcomes of the Moscow workshop, to explore the possibility of developing criteria to assess success in the implementation of the UNECE Strategy for ESD in the countries of the UNECE region, based on the indicators and on the examples submitted by countries to the UNECE secretariat.

Following this decision, the Expert Group held its fifth meeting in Vienna, Austria on 20-22 June 2007 to address Task 2. For more information, see documents for this meeting:

Agenda
Report
 
Criteria for assessing success in the implementation of the UNECE Strategy for ESD
Background documents
Case studies, make-your-case studies, and
case stories: a critique of case-study
methodology in sustainability in higher
education. Corcoran, P. B., Walker K. E., Wals, A. E. J. Environmental Education Research. Vol. 10, No. 1, 2004.
Education and Conservation: lessons from an evaluation. Fien, J., Scott, W., Tilbury, D. Environmental Education Research. Vol.7. No. 4, 2001
 
Exploring principles of good practice: Learning from a meta-analysis of case studies on education within conservation across the WWF Network. Fien, J., Scott, W., Tilbury, D. Applied Environmental Education and Communication 1:153-162 (2002)
 
‘Quality systems’ for Sustainable Education as tools for quality enhancement and participation. Michela Mayer
Learning for a Change: exploring the relationship between education and sustainable development. Vare, P., Scott, W.
Quality criteria for ESD-Schools
Developing quality at "EDS Schools"
EC Flash: Weekly Earth Charter Inspiration

The Expert Group held four meetings in 2005 and 2006.

The fourth meeting took place on 10-12 May 2006 in the Hague (the Netherlands). The Expert Group finalised the set of the indicators for the submission to the second meeting of the UNECE Steering Committee on ESD for consideration and approval. The International Standard of Classification of Education (ISCED), and in particular the classification of levels of education was used for developing the Indicators for ESD. For more information, see documents for the meeting:

Agenda
Report
Comments by Experts on the consolidated version of Indicators for ESD
Working paper with a consolidated version of Indicators for ESD

A Reporting Format (En Fr Ru) was developed on the basis of the Indicators for ESD and following the procedure for the review of implementation of the Strategy adopted by the first meeting of Steering Committee. In addition, an informal Guidance for Reporting was developed to facilitate the preparation of the National Implementation Reports (En Ru).

The third meeting took place on 11-13 March 2006 in Vienna (Austria), back to back with the EU Conference on Education for Sustainable Development. The Expert Group continued its work on the draft indicators taking into consideration comments provided by the Steering Committee. For more information, see documents for the meeting:

Agenda
Report
Comments on the Indicators for ESD
Working paper with a draft outline of Indicators for ESD

The second meeting took place on 31 October - 2 November 2005 in Geneva (Switzerland). The Expert Group prepared a draft of indicators for the submission to the UNECE Steering Committee on ESD for comments.

The first meeting took place on 26-28 September 2005 in Ede (the Netherlands). At this meeting experts addressed the purpose, scope and format of indicators. For more information, see documents for the meeting:

Agenda
Report
Background paper by the Secretariat
Background paper by the expert from the Netherlands
Statement by the European ECO-Forum