An Investigation of Education for Sustainable Development Competencies: A Case Study of GFP Teachers of University of Buraimi 

Asma Hamyar Al Azzani

Centre of Foundation Studies, University of Buraimi (UoB), Sultanate of Oman

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a kind of education that has recently gained international prominence for solving many sustainability challenges. The current quantitative research seeks to investigate the University of Buraimi General Foundation Program (GFP) teachers' education for sustainable development competencies and their aspects. It aims to answer two questions: What education for sustainable development competencies do the GFP teachers at the University of Buraimi have? And what aspects of sustainable development education do the GFP teachers at the University of Buraimi possess? This research is significant, as it will help all stakeholders evaluate the current teaching competencies of education for sustainable development that in-service teachers have and how to develop them to achieve the main plan of education for sustainable development by 2030. A total of twenty GFP teachers participated in the current study for the academic year 2022–2023 at the University of Buraimi. They were selected using a convenience sampling procedure. One electronic questionnaire was used to collect data. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software (version 23) was used to analyze the data. Results show that GFP teachers' ESD competencies are higher than their transversal competencies and science education competencies, respectively. They further show that GFP teachers are more competent in raising students' environmental awareness, putting an emphasis on intellectual development, and thinking about the effects of their behaviors on their countries and the world than the rest of the current research competencies' aspects. The current research implications and future research avenues were also discussed.

Keywords: Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Sustainable Development (SD.), competencies, sustainability  

The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Eighth International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.LLLD.IR), 14-15 February 2023, Ahwaz.