India, with the third largest higher education system globally, has the lowest gross enrolment ratio compared to G20 nations. The National Education Policy 2020 has made a strong recommendation to enhance the gross enrolment ratio for higher education to 50% by 2035. This figure stood at 19.4% in 2010 and 28.4% in 2021-22. The study, therefore,…

Purpose: This paper aims to ask how the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has orchestrated a sustainable development (SD) agenda in its international policy since 2020. Design/methodology/approach: By drawing on theoretical ideas around policy orchestration as a key UN governing strategy and applying them to the analysis of the progression of…

Self-regulation in the governance of higher education systems is often assumed to improve institutional performance, accountability, and responsiveness. Although studies of higher education governance have addressed the extent of self-regulation across national systems, there has been less investigation of the links between self-regulation and…

In today's digital society, the quest for sustainable development requires a paradigm shift in policy making, education, and individual lifestyle choices. This study explores the impact of informal education through communication technologies, with a specific focus on the social media network Instagram, to promote education for sustainable…

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is pivotal in fostering innovation and promoting Germany's position in global industries and in several sectors. This paper explores selected cases of STEM education and STEM related VET in Germany, focusing on how learning outcomes are aligned with the evolving demands of a…

This article deals with the question of how teacher education and teacher training in Germany -- of which many aspects have been fragmentized -- can nevertheless provide teachers with an adequate opportunity to systematically develop their professional competences in the field of education for sustainable development (ESD). Based on current…

Within socio-economic transformation processes, the task of education is often reduced to short-term economic factors, that is, a suitable qualification profile of the local population. Transformative education should, however, be based on the broader claim that education contributes to successful transformation processes in the sense of…

This article reviews Education for Sustainability (EfS) in the secondary sector across a range of countries. Drawing on journal articles, book chapters and official reports, it identifies some of the more successful approaches to implementing EfS within the secondary sector. The authors first discuss the importance of educating for sustainability…

The United Nations (UN) Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aimed to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning around the world. The authors of this article address the implementation process of ESD in Germany during the UN Decade (2005-2014). By…

While science-policy interfaces (SPIs) are argued to be crucial in developing and implementing effective public policy programmes, what happens in a particular SPI policy-research relationship remains under-researched, particularly in relation to 'success criteria' for policy makers and researchers. In this article, we address this gap by…

Germany has only recently started to discuss the possible contribution, on a conceptual basis, of post-colonial theory to development education. Drawing on key policy papers, this article explores how post-colonial and antiracist critiques of German development education have changed the field in the past decade. It first provides the history of…

Purpose: The aim of the research is to determine to what extent one can talk about "cosmopolitan citizenship" not only programmatically, but also as an already functioning entity. And what role can and should civic education play in the development of such a citizenship? Methods: A working definition of citizenship at the national,…

This paper examines the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Germany and explores the possibilities of Social Network Analysis (SNA) for uncovering influential actors in educational policy innovation processes. From the theoretical perspective, an actor's influence is inferred from its relative position within…

Since the nineties, the principle of sustainable development has increasingly been adopted by policy makers and civil society in Germany and, of course, in many countries of the world. With the acceptance of this principle, the significance of education for sustainable development (ESD) has also been recognised. Increased awareness of the problems…

Education for sustainable development (ESD) often fails to consider the political dimension. To address this gap, this paper focuses on a specific political approach to ESD. The model presented is derived from the four sustainable growth targets of German Development Policy. Instead of relying on a neo-classical or neo-liberal economic paradigm,…