Education for Sustainability and the Australian Curriculum

A national curriculum is presently being developed in Australia with implementation due during 2014. Associated standards for the accreditation of teachers and for teacher education providers have been prepared with the standards describing skills and attributes that teachers are expected to attain. The developing Australian Curriculum, along with the teacher accreditation and initial teacher education program standards, claim to support guiding statements that describe aspirations for all young Australians. Those guiding statements acknowledge that ‘sustainability’ is an essential element of education for young people in Australia. However ‘sustainability’ is unconvincingly represented in the curriculum and is not visible in the standards. This could potentially result in its omission from teacher education and qualification at all levels. A similar situation already exists in New South Wales (NSW). This article illustrates the positioning of five freshly graduated primary teachers within the context of their five NSW schools and from this distils implications for teaching ‘sustainability’ within the developing national proposals.