FORMATION OF ESD COMPETENCIES IN TEACHERS OF PRIMARY CLASSES IN THE PROCESS OF PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

Abstract

The paper reveals the problem of integration of education for sustainable development (hereinafter – ESD) in the process of professional training of future primary school teachers. The questionnaire explores the key competencies of sustainable development in future primary school teachers, including systematic thinking, prognostic, law competence, competence of teamwork, critical thinking, self-awareness, integrated problem solving. The indicators of the competencies for future primary education specialists have been determined by the authors of the research. The experimental survey included the empirical study of the level of development of competencies in the field of ESD according to the established indicators and evaluation of the overall level of their formation. The comparative analysis of the levels of the key competencies in students of the first and the fourth year of study in the specialty of “Primary Education” in order to establish the role of university education in the investigated process. The study analyses the changes achieved in teaching of sustainable development competencies in higher education. The results demonstrated slight improvement in level of formation of sustainable development competencies in students of the final year of the bachelor’s degree in primary education, however, these changes are insignificant. The findings of the research proved that bachelor’s graduates, unlike freshmen, have higher level of skills of application of ideas of sustainable development in future professional activities (they are acquainted with methods of integration of sustainable development into primary school subjects, know how to develop educational projects on sustainable development, understand and integrate ethical principles of sustainability in professional and personal activities). However, the level of formation of systematic thinking and prognostic competence in freshmen is higher than in fourth-year students. Besides, the obtained results of the study report about considerably low level of development of skills to realise educational projects on sustainable development: only 28 % of the first-year students and 36.4 % of the fourth-year respondents gave affirmative answers. We revealed a positive dynamic in students’ awareness of the necessity in taking their own responsibility for sustainable development. After all, overcoming poverty, inequality, achieving peace and justice, protection of human rights and saving the planet require the generation of individual responsibility, as the agents of change, which is the pre-condition of collective progress towards the goals of sustainable development. The study found an improvement in the competencies of sustainable development in graduates of the bachelor’s degree program “Primary Education” in contrast to the first-year students. Applicants for higher education have some knowledge and orientation in the field of sustainable development, an idea of individual responsibilities for sustainability. However, according to the majority of indicators, only a small proportion of respondents (less than half) have the required level of sustainable development competencies. We believe that the educational program for the training of future primary school professionals and the technology of teaching higher education need to be improved. Therefore, we see the prospect of further research in the study of opportunities to improve the educational and professional program “Primary Education” in the direction of complementing its components with ideas of sustainable development, as well as the formation of skills to develop and implement educational projects in future specialists of primary education.