The Role of Education and Lifelong Learning in Sustainable Rural Development

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Euracademy 5th Summer Academy

• The Role of Education and Lifelong Learning in
  Sustainable Rural Development
• plenary session
• Dr. Rhys Evans
• Integrate Consulting,
• Highland Perthshire
• Scotland UK

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Introduction Change, Learning and Rural
Development
3

• Sustainability
• Local Global

4
What is sustainability?

• Stewardship
• Of environment
• Of resources
• Of identity
• Principles of Justice
• Social Justice
• Environmental Justice

5
Types of sustainability

• Environmental
• Economic
• Social and Cultural

6
Sustainability and Time

• Present
• Past
• Future

7
Learning as a mechanism for coping with change

• An Ecological metaphor
• Learning functions as diversity in ability of
  community to respond to change.
• Old knowledges, new knowledges, all are important
  in development.

8
2 Changing rural development

• Economic change
• Social change
• Environmental change
• Technological change
• Policy Change

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Economic Change in Rural Europe

• Primary sector economic activity
• Secondary sector
• Tertiary sector
• Quaternary sector
• European change in emphasis from primary
  (production) to tertiary (services and
  consumption).

10
The new consumption economy

• Consumption-in-Place
• Retains landscape features and is thus
  sustainable
• Brings higher value than pure commodity
  harvesting
• Otherwise-neglected local resources/assets are
  integral to producing high value added services
  and products

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New consumption economy

• In mass Global Market, local isolation becomes
  an asset, not a liability.
• Local distinctiveness is key marketing tool
  there is no place like this.
• Place-marking
• Places
• Products
• Services

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Environmental change in rural Europe

• Cross-border environmental issues
• Acid rain
• Water quality
• Impact of agriculture and forestry
• Overproduction
• Impact of urbanisation
• Growth, suburbanisation, counter-urbanisation.

13
Technological change in rural Europe

• isolation
• Improved transport networks, linking formerly
  isolated places to core markets
• New transport technologies reduce price for goods
  and people
• presence
• IT, rural broadband
• Lower call rates, mobile phone access

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Policy change in rural Europe

• EU development policy
• Second Pillar the environment
• new regulation of rural environment
• Moves to change ordering of Agriculture and Rural
  Development
• CAP support -- from production to ????
• Modulation
• Implicit support for community-led development at
  heart of sustainability
• LEADER

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3 Development and Community

• Putting the Community into Rural Development in
  Europe
• Changing governance
• Increased neo-liberalisation
• retreat from food mountains to quality of rural
  landscape
• Impact and importance of sustainability

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Asset-based approaches to rural community
development

• Asset-based Rural Community Development (ABRCD)
• Sustainable Livelihoods
• (UNDP, UK Dffid)
• Five Capitals Model
• UK Sustainable Development Commission
• Asset-Based Community Development
• Cody Institute, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Carnegie UK Rural Commission
• ABRCD

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Five Capitals model

• Capitals are assets.
• Some are material
• Some are Intangible
• Some belong outside community
• Some belong within community
• All are necessary parts of sustainable development

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Five Capitals

• Natural
• Human
• Social
• Manufactured
• Financial

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Natural Capital

• Biodiversity, flora fauna
• Landscape character
• Soils
• Water
• Air and climate
• Minerals and other non-renewables

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Human Capital

• Employment and skills base
• Education and training
• Health and well-being
• Leadership and trust

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Social Capital

• Leadership and trust
• Community cohesion
• A sense of place
• Stakeholder networks and processes

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Manufactured Capital

• Archeology
• Buildings and Built Heritage
• Transport infrastructure, traffic and access
  networks
• Processes and waste products
• Energy production and Consumption
• IT and telecommunications

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Financial Capital

• Private Capital
• Business investment
• Infrastructure investment
• IT and digital industry investment
• Land ownership
• Public Capital
• CAP
• Rural programmes
• Environment, sustainability
• Local authority expenditure
• Community land acquisition

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Five Capitals/Assets

• These Capitals are the assets communities bring
  to the development table.
• Knowledge Assets are expressed by individuals but
  can be a collective resource
• Not limited to culture items such as music or
  food. Can include ways of working, the
  importance of local networks to mobilize
  development, and other assets which contribute to
  enterprise

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4 Changing Education

• Education and Community Development
• Education and Sustainability
• Education and economic development
• Learning and Livelihood

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Learning formal, non-formal?

• Formal
• Primary, Secondary, Higher Education
• Accredited learning
• Trade Skills
• Vocational Skills
• Language Skills
• IT Skills
• Business, Enterpreneurship

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Learning formal, non-formal?

• Non-formal
• Non-accredited learning
• Land-based
• Food, buildings and architecture, husbandry
• Local language and culture products
• Local narratives, local place identities
• Important role for people

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Life-long Learning

• 
  Learning
• Challenge
• Change

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Life-long Learning

• Builds robustness in the face of change
• Is of use to all ages
• Crosses formal and non-formal education
• Ensures continuity of knowledge

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Place-based Education

• can be characterized as structured learning in
  issues of local history, culture, language,
  environment, and economy.
• This approach to teaching and learning
  represents a general orientation which focuses on
  local resources
• Eric Romero. USA

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Place-based Education

• place-based education serves both individuals
  and communities,
• helping individuals to experience the value
  they hold for others
• and allowing communities to benefit from the
  commitment and contributions of their members
• Gregory Smith, USA

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Place-based Education

• Two aspects
• Research
• Gathering local knowledges
• Using students or community members to do
  research
• Dissemination
• Teaching through formal and non-formal channels
• Often inter-generational

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Place-based Education

• Ensures that individual knowledge, at risk of
  dying away, becomes collective knowledge, a
  collective resource.
• Turns this knowledge into an Asset for the
  Community.
• Provides both the raw material (knowledges), and
  a process (learning) through which individuals
  gain the knowledge to engage in self-development,
  personally and economically

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Place-based Education

• Contributes to sustainable development by
• reinforcing local cultures and identities,
• making available key assets for collective and
  individual development
• Increasing local pride, especially amongst the
  young
• Increases social interaction across generations,
  increases social capital and collective capacity

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Place-based Education

• Can take place in a school
• Can take place in a community centre
• Encompasses the outdoors and external environment
• Can operate at as small or as large a scale as
  necessary

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5 Learning as a resource for sustainable
development

• Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
  development

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Local changes
• Global changes
• New opportunities for rural distinction

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Social change
• Economic change
• Political change

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• New challenges
• Decline of traditional role of rural Europe as
  sole provider of raw commodities
• Loss of young people
• Increase of environmental and other regulation
• Encroachment of urban and global cultures on
  local society

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Opportunities
• Growth of consumption sector
• Growth of distance working and IT
• New values for natural environments
• New opportunities for aspects of rural culture
  which were previously under-valued.

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Learning
• Place-based education captures heritage and local
  knowledges and turns them into a community asset
• Learning to manage new technologies allows rural
  residents to directly reach distant markets

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Lifelong learning
• Takes place across formal and non-formal sectors
• Takes place at all ages, and at all levels of
  formal education
• Part-time and distance learning can fit into
  rural lifestyles and demands.

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Is the key to turning knowledge into an Asset
• Is the essential connector between the global and
  the local
• Supports heritage knowledges and new innovations
  equally

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Lifelong learning and sustainable rural
development

• Is a key component of sustainable development
  at the levels of environment, economy and society.

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Group task

• Gather in small groups, not from the same area.
• Take copy of Five Capitals table.
• Using flipchart, make new detailed table
• Take each category in the Five Capitals table and
  Operationalize it devise concrete examples of
  each Capital
• Return to discuss and produce a master table

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Example 1 Human Capital employment and skills
base

• Human Capital
• Employment and Skills Base
• Land-based skills
• Building trades
• Farming trades
• Forestry trades
• Domestic trades
• Service sector skills
• Hospitality
• Local cuisine
• Tours and interpretation
• Consumer services

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Example 2 natural capital -- water

• Water
• Quality
• Historic supply channels
• Current challenges
• Uses
• Drinking
• Industry
• Power generation