ask 3: An English Climate Emergency Education Act
Our third is inspired by the US Defence Education Act, which was the huge, and ultimately successful, investment in their Education system on STEM as part of the space race.
We are asking for an English Climate Emergency Education Act; a symbolically important new act of Parliament, sitting above the various pieces of existing legislation, stating an expectation on education providers at all levels to deliver teaching and learning on the climate emergency, climate justice (the social injustice issues pertaining from global heating) and ecological crisis, and providing substantial new funding to enable this to happen at pace. We have drafted the legislation and think it is the first ever education legislation to have been written by pupils and students.
This funding provided by the Act would allow for:
-
A learning programme for existing teachers and lecturers, and other key educational institution staff, on the science of the climate emergency and ecological crisis, the systems changes required to abate them, including provision of teaching resources at all levels. This would include training to enable these staff members to identify eco-anxiety and support pupils suffering from eco-anxiety;
-
A national Climate Education Information Institute to disseminate scientific information about climate change, its effects and measures of prevention;
-
A national programme of vocational training through the development of national centres of excellence to promote the reskilling of the workforce in line with the green skills requirements of industrial strategy;
-
A national programme for research into the impact and outcomes of sustainability learning in terms of learning outcomes, attainment, resilience and wellbeing;
-
A national programme of outdoor education and connection to nature linked to learning about the climate emergency and ecological crisis;
-
An English climate emergency youth voice grant fund, so that youth voice climate boards can be established in all education providers, local authorities and NHS trusts. See Appendix one for more information;
-
Establishment of a Youth Climate Endowment Fund to fund youth-led climate and environmental social action enabling students in every educational institution to engage their peers, teachers and parents in practical, local action to abate the climate emergency and ecological crisis. See Appendix two for more information.
The act would also impose a new duty on schools to ensure they designate a senior member of staff as a climate co-ordinator, responsible for implementing their new duties, and create a general duty on the Office for Students with regard to teaching and learning about the climate emergency and ecological crisis.
Importantly, the act would also ensure that the Government puts our educational buildings to the front of the queue to be retrofitted to net-zero standards through the national infrastructure plan. If our education system is to teach students about sustainability, the buildings they learn within must be sustainable, because of the importance of the subliminal curriculum to learning. The act would also commit the funding to make this happen, ensuring all new state-funded educational buildings are net-zero from 2022; all existing state-funded educational buildings retrofitted to net-zero by 2030.
Read the bill cover note here
Read the net-zero educational building costings here
Find out more about our asks, read the full document here
