The method which people use in acquiring knowledge is functionally interdependent with, and thus inseparable from, the substance of the knowledge they possess, and especially from their basic image of the world. If this image is different, the method they devise for acquiring knowledge is, as a matter of course, different too.

With the advent of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which has spread to the majority of countries across the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020. Governments all over the world, including in southern Africa, introduced measures such as the banning of large gatherings,closure of borders, schools and institutions of higher learning to curb the spread of COVID-19. To ensure ongoing teaching and learning, institutions of higher learning made resolutions to transition to remote/online teaching and learning. While online education has long preceded the pandemic, the spiraling of COVID-19 all over the world resulted in the upscaling of online teaching and learning in higher education institutions. Mandatory online teaching and learning was a relatively new practice to most lecturers and students in southern Africa. Drawing on two case stories from Botswana and Namibia, this paper offers a think piece on the shifts to online learning, considering assumptions, implications and possibilities for quality learning in teacher education, through a reflection by teacher educators of environment and sustainability courses. The assumptions in online learning were that students and teacher educators had the capacity and infrastructure for remote/online teaching and learning. This paper thus opens up opportunities for institutions of higher learning to scale up their Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and support for both students and teacher educators for online teaching and learning which have the potential to improve on quality education during times of crisis. Keywords: Online teaching and learning, ICT infrastructure, Education for SustainableDevelopment (ESD), quality education

No abstract

No abstract

Like many national curricula around the world, South Africa’s curriculum is rich in environment and sustainability content. Despite this, environmental teaching and learning can be challenging for educators. This comes at a time when Sustainable Development Goal 4 via Target 4.7 requires governments to integrate Education for Sustainable Development into national education systems. Teaching and Learning for Change is an exploration of how teachers and teacher educators engage environment and sustainability content knowledge, methods, and assessment practices – an exposition of quality education processes in support of ecological and social justice and sustainability. The chapters evolve from a ten-year research programme led out of the DSI/NRF SARChI Chair in Global Change and Social Learning Systems working with national partners in the Fundisa for Change programme and the UNESCO Sustainability Starts with Teachers programme. They show the integration of education for sustainable development in teacher professional development and curricula in schools in South Africa. They reveal how university-based researchers, teachers and teacher educators have made theoretically and contextually reasoned choices about their lives and their teaching in response to calls for a more sustainable world in which education must play a role. Teaching and Learning for Change will be of interest to education policymakers in government, advisors and educators in educational and environmental departments, NGOs and other institutions. It will also be of interest to teacher educators, teachers and researchers in education more generally, and environment and sustainability education specifically.