The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development identifies transformative learning as a key focus for re-orienting society towards sustainability. The South African National Research Plan identifies social learning for adaptation, innovation and resilience as a key research theme of the Global Change Grand Challenge. Social learning processes for re-orientation of society and education and training systems is needed if South African society is to develop and adapt to new challenges associated with global change.

This has been identified as a key research component in the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme. It has also been recognised on a continental level, by the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment, which identified the need to mainstream environmental education into all education and social systems in Africa, in order to help society adapt to global change challenges and new development opportunities.

All the research programmes in the Environmental Learning Research Centre contribute knowledge of social learning and global change with an emphasis on social learning processes in different contexts; programmes focus on the re-orientation of education, training and social systems. An active research network focussing on social learning and global change exists, hosted by the ELRC which is increasingly acting as a ‘Social Learning and Global Change’ ESD research hub.

For further information, email elrc@ru.ac.za

Last Modified: Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:37:54 SAST