UNESCO Chair Lecture: Sirkka Tshiningayamwe on ESD Leadership in Southern Africa
How can educators in Southern Africa lead curriculum innovation in Education for Sustainable Development together? On 16 October 2024, Dr. Sirkka Tshiningayamwe, Senior Lecturer at the University of Namibia, gave the second lecture in our UNESCO Chair Lecture Series, in person in Lüneburg and online.
In her lecture “ESD Leadership for Curriculum Innovation in Southern Africa”, Sirkka started from the complex cultural, social and ecological contexts of the region. Addressing them, she argued, requires putting transformative education and learning for sustainable development at the centre of educational work. When educational institutions work together, they can provide strong leadership for ESD in curriculum innovation and changes in practice, and inspire the next generation of teachers to offer education and training of better quality and relevance.
She opened with questions about her own position: who am I, and what is my role in transforming ESD praxis in Southern Africa, with whom, why and how? The lecture then invited the audience to reflect with her on whether this approach supports educational engagement with “The Africa We Want”, the vision of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, by rethinking what quality and relevant education and training means.
About the speaker
Sirkka Tshiningayamwe is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Namibia. She has over ten years of experience in facilitating pre-service and in-service programmes for teachers and teacher educators focusing on Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Sirkka has taken part in regional and international collaborations, among them Sustainability Starts with Teachers, a capacity-building programme on ESD for teacher and TVET educators in Southern Africa, and the One Ocean Hub, an international project on transformative ocean governance. She is an editor of the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) Bulletin and has coordinated and evaluated ESD programmes. Sirkka has presented her work regionally and internationally, for example at the University of Illinois on place-based and participatory approaches to sustainability education and evaluation in the Global South, at Uppsala University, and at the EEASA conference in Lusaka, Zambia, on greening the Namibian curriculum. She is part of the International Committee of Experts working on the Education4allSDGs application, which assesses the impacts of education policies and projects with regard to the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
About the UNESCO Chair Lecture Series
The UNESCO Chair Lecture Series, hosted by the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development at Leuphana University Lüneburg, builds on and continues the legacy of earlier dialogue formats at our department, including the Institute for Sustainable Development and Learning’s series “In Conversation with …” and the UNESCO Chair’s “Rethinking Higher Education” series.
In this series, we bring together scholars from around the world to share their research and diverse perspectives on sustainability and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Designed as a hybrid format, the lectures offer a space for dialogue, exchange of ideas, and critical reflection on the role of higher education in shaping sustainable futures. All lectures are listed on our Lecture Series page.
