Image by Como una Reina from Pixabay
A good article in Eco-business points out the sheer scope and variety of jobs, and thus skills, required to drive economies towards being on a green footing. As much as the public may demand green services and as much as government policy may set green targets, if the skills are not in the workforce to deliver then progress will be slow, or at least slower than people want.
This then raises an important question for the education sector. It is our experience that education in sustainability is severely lacking even in societies where public awareness of, and demand for action, on green issues is at its highest. These places are also those best placed to overhaul the teaching of sustainability in schools at all levels and thus have a fundamental impact on the future workforce demanding green skills for employment. But it is also an opportunity for those places with lower levels of educational coverage and quality to enact one of the biggest lessons of history – not to repeat the mistakes of the so-called “developed” world and to forge a new path to even greater prosperity – achieved through attaining social, economic and environmentally sustainable systems in a holistic approach to a new values-based appraisal of what it actually means to be developed.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.