Prelims

Half Title Page

Education Policy as a Roadmap for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Title Page

Education Policy as a Roadmap for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Effecting a Paradigm Shift for Peace and Prosperity through New Partnerships

By

Alison Taysum

University of Leicester, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2020

© 2020 Alison Taysum

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83909-298-5 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-297-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-299-2 (Epub)

Dedication

I dedicate this book to

Jo Taysum, Roy Taysum, Katie Taysum and Dr Peter Taysum

and

The Rev Michael Parker whose teachings at Knowle Parish Church have been full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom and encouraged me, to Stewart Wallace, Professor Derek Sheldon and the choir who have been a joy to worship God with,

and

Professor Richard Pring who has devoted his precious time to support the development of the ideas of this book and the evolution of the BELMAS DRIG and BELMAS SRN.

Professor Jim Conroy who devoted his precious time to help me work up a paper focusing on the social contract that became Chapters 4 and 5 of this book.

Professor Peter Ribbins who inspired me to do this research and introduced me to Socrates and my dear friend Dr Rene Saran of the Society for the Furtherance of Critical Philosophy.

I also dedicate this book to my international research partners and to all who work tirelessly to bring reason and faith together so that peoples of all faiths and none may work in new partnerships for a more inclusive society that honours and respects the protected characteristics of the UK Equality Act (2010).

Together we can achieve the sustainable development goals for lasting peace and prosperity for our planet and our people.

Preface

The Council of the European Union's (2019, p. 1) The European Union Youth Strategy 2019–2027 recognises that young people are architects of their own lives, contribute to positive change in society and enrich the EU's ambitions, and that youth policy can contribute to create a space where young people can seize opportunities and relate to European values. In light of the changing employment landscape, the European Union should support young people's personal development and growth to autonomy, build their resilience and equip them with the necessary resources to participate in society, thus contributing to the eradication of youth poverty and all forms of discrimination, as well as to the promotion of social inclusion.

Young people are the future hope for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2016):

1. No Poverty;

2. Zero Hunger;

3. Good Health and Well-being;

4. Quality Education;

5. Gender Equality;

6. Clean Water and Sanitation;

7. Affordable and Clean Energy;

8. Decent Work and Economic Growth;

9. Industry Innovation and Infrastructure;

10. Reduced Inequalities;

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities;

12. Responsible Consumption and Production;

13. Climate Action;

14. Life Below Water;

15. Life on Land;

16. Peace, justice and Strong Institutions;

17. Partnerships for the Goals.

The SDGs have been agreed globally in an unprecedented ambitious and innovative agenda for prosperity and peace for people and planet. What is currently missing is a road map for achieving the paradigm shift to achieve the SDGs. This monograph charts how education policy can provide a road map to achieving the SDGs with A Blueprint for Character Development for Evolution (ABCDE) with Assessment for Personal and Social Learning (APSL).

ABCDE starts with SDG 4: ‘to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all’. Once citizens can apply ABCDE to SDG 4, they have the thinking tools and skills they need to move from immature to mature citizen in becoming. As autonomous citizens of good character, they are able to understand their moral duties within a social contract with an embedded economy. Their moral duties are fully and explicitly known to them, and as Kant suggests, might even be written by them. With these forms of knowledge young people are the future hope for building new partnerships. These partnerships can achieve peace and prosperity with knowledge to action strategies that are kind to the people and the planet by achieving all the SDGs (United Nations, 2016). The SDG targets address wicked problems/professional challenges.

ABCDE is in five stages. (A) asks questions to get a sense of the problem/professional challenge; (B) explores different, even conflicting beliefs about the professional challenge; (C) provides methods to collect trustworthy data across sectors, nations, regions and globally; (D) test hypotheses regarding (1) redistributing wealth or (2) creating opportunities and incentivising the socialisation of risks, investment and rewards for the means of production, below minimal harm, of public and private goods. Goods range from artisan to mass produced within sustainable eco-systems. The hypotheses are tested and benchmarked against pre-determined specific, measurable (of both the effective and affective dimensions), realistic and timebound key performance indicators, and (E) arrive at universal principles that inform theories of change for mobilising top-down state policy that incentivises socialised risk taking, investment and rewards in the public, private and third sectors, coupled to regulations that both safeguard and empower grass roots up innovation and achievement of each SDG target. Safeguarding includes impartial opportunities for mitigation at every stage of the process with adequate funding to protect innovators who may be challenging confused and irrational bureaucracies.

This book demonstrates how HEI Vice Chancellors, Deans of Faculties and Schools of Education may work in partnership with Senior Seasoned Credentialled Educational Leaders of Compulsory and Post-Compulsory Education systems, all professions, medicine, law, criminal justice services, societal finance, business, and industrial sectors, architects, planners, social and public services, governance systems, trusts and foundations, agents from pharmaceutical industries, Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, the professions, energy and renewable energy industries and consortia, the third sector, and all dimensions of the wider society, to come together in community partnerships to implement theories of change by applying ABCDE. This book builds on a previous Emerald book Taysum and Arar (2018) that identifies policy and networks are required to achieve social justice and build trust in governance systems. This book provides ABCDE as a step-by-step road map to achieve a paradigm shift away from popularism and a persistent global narrative of Violence, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. The paradigm shift moves from behaviour control to behaviour empowerment by engaging with attitudes and the virtues that bring the aesthetic to the human experience. Thus ABCDE is a road map that empowers citizens to become critical autonomous problem solvers who know how to replace fear with virtues, and can create theories of change and mobilise community partnerships to achieve the SDGs.

The road map unfolds chapter by chapter and explains how to build philosophies, sociologies, psychologies and ethics of trust and equity in governance systems using ABCDE supported by policy. How risk, investment and rewards in the public, private and third sector Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER) are explained.

This book does not offer a critique of the SDGs, or their underpinning moral, even universal principles. These have been carefully documented and critiqued with clear logical, empirical and ethical rationales. The transparency of the underpinning moral principles can be fully and explicitly known and challenged by the reader so that they have proof of concept; that global commitment from nation states in a unique commitment to achieving the SDGs is morally rational and empirically essential.

Rather, what this book offers is how education policy needs to provide a road map for giving citizens the thinking tools they need to make sense of the SDGs as autonomous rational mature citizens in becoming. The education policy needs to include Intended Learning Outcomes that will allow the road map to direct citizens to know how to associate with the different SDGs, and how they can work with institutions/segments of society where universities bridge between knowledge and the wider society to mobilise innovations to meet the SDGs. Here each target of each of the SDGs can be seen as an Intended Learning Outcome.

Education policy that provides a road map to achieve SDG 4 using ABCDE through APSL provides young people with a road map to achieve all the SDGs without (1) overwhelming citizens or (2) individually responsiblising them for achieving the SDGs. Universities can develop community engagement groups and develop infrastructure through Professional Educators' and Administrators' Committees for Empowerment (PEACE) and citizens can choose which SDG grass roots up committees they participate with or not, as they wish. This book explains how Education Policy provides a road map to achieving the SDGs chapter by chapter, and step by step, taking a grass root up approach.