The project ‘ETRES’

Yolanda ZIAKA, January 2017

A European network for the training of educators involved in Education for the Environment and for Sustainable Development accompanying the citizens’ dynamics for the ecological transition.

The association ‘Polis’ participates as a partner in the ‘European Educational & Training Resources for Environment & Sustainability’ (‘ETRES’) project supported by the European Union under the Erasmus + program. The project aims to build a long-term partnership between four European countries, with a view to jointly developing training elements contributing to the professionalization of educators doing field work in Education for the Environment and for Sustainable Development (EESD), by developing training-action modules.

The initial observation is that EESD actors are increasingly being called upon to play a role in supporting the actions of citizens towards ecological transition and sustainable management of resources at the local level. This new mission goes far beyond their traditional activities, primarily consisting on raising awareness of environmental issues, …, acquiring knowledge on environmental issues, promoting and adopting new behaviors in terms of energy consumption, waste disposal, transportation … The question that seems to emerge among the people involved in EESD, and which is shared at the European level at the present time is: how to best accompany the territorial dynamics of ecological transition?

In a partnership between four European countries, the project aims to create a shared and transferable training module, addressed to educators, based on the local needs of the specific territories where the partners operate.

This training module will take the form of a digital tool with a possible remote follow-up coupled with modalities of face-to-face training. Part of the module will form the “core curriculum” which will be supplemented by complementary modules in each country and according to the contexts of the involved structures. Furthermore, the project envisions to explore and define modalities of validation of this module in the form of European credits such as ECVET (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training) or local validation by the professionals themselves.

The project ‘ETRES’ started in September 2016 for a period of 3 years. In addition to ‘Polis’ association, the partners are the following structures: National Institute for Agricultural Graduate Studies in Montpellier – Montpellier SupAgro (France – project coordinator), Alchimia Società Cooperative Sociale (Italy), Parco Nord Milano (Italy), Graine Languedoc-Rousillon (France), Institute for Training and Research in Environmental Education (Ifrée) (France), Alejandro Gallego Barrera SLU (Spain).