Green skills Transformative niches for greening work
- Authors: Ramsarup, Preesha , Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Jenkin, Nicola
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436882 , vital:73313 , ISBN 978-981-15-6370-6 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6370-6_8
- Description: Supporting green skills development is integral in the transition to a green economy. Green skills can be difficult to define and measure at an aggregate level because they are a socially constructed concept, intangible and are often unobservable. Further, a demand-led approach to green skills has not worked because employers are unable to effectively articulate their needs to skills delivery bodies. This advances the need for a transformative methodology that is able to provide a more nu-anced view of skills planning to support green work. Drawing on transition theorists, this chapter demonstrates that greening work transitions occur in “niches” at local levels, where nexus concerns arise around the impetus to green work. Furthermore, it is from these transformative niches that wider social changes and regime shifts are driven or emerge. Using experiences from the chemicals sector in South Africa, the chapter illus-trates the need to develop non-reductionist conceptualisations that illustrate the “regime lock-ins” as well as green skills oppor-tunities at multiple levels.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Navigating Multiple Tensions for Engaged Praxis in a Complex Social-Ecological System
- Authors: Cockburn, Jessica J , Palmer, Carolyn G , Biggs, Harry , Rosenberg, Eureta
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/127886 , vital:36052 , https://doi.org/10.3390/land7040129
- Description: Recently, the 33-year journey of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education (SAJEE) was the subject of reflection during an Open Access Publishing week convened by Rhodes University Library Services. Two former and current editors-in-chief shared the SAJEE’s story of publishing ‘from the margins into the centre’. In the early 1990s, the Journal was mailed to the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) membership from the foyer of the Rhodes Education Department (which had the floor space for stuffing and stacking A4 envelopes). In the first decade of this century, the Journal arrived at a symbolic ‘centre’ with digital distribution, first on the EEASA website and then from the Open Access platform provided by African Journals Online (AJOL). The digital move was vital for sustained and increased distribution in a time of shrinking budgets and growing costs. The results, shared with the EEASA Council earlier this year, were nothing short of spectacular: In March 2017, the SAJEE received more than 1 250 article downloads (www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee), and the number of downloads have stayed above 500 each month subsequently (Figure 1). Views and downloads are recorded around the world including,
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- Date Issued: 2018
The green economy learning assessment South Africa: Lessons for higher education, skills and work-based learning
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Presha
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182765 , vital:43872 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-03-2018-0041"
- Description: The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with reference to the competency framings of Scharmer (2009) and Wiek et al. (2011); and implications for university and work-based sustainability education, broadly conceptualised in a just transitions framework. The assessment was conducted using desktop policy reviews and an audit of sustainability education providers, online questionnaires to sector experts, focus groups and interviews with practitioners driving green economy initiatives. Policy monitoring and evaluation, and education for sustainable development, emerged as key change levers across nine priority areas including agriculture, energy, natural resources, water, transport and infrastructure. The competencies required to drive sustainability in these areas were clustered as technical, relational and transformational competencies for: making the case; integrated sustainable development planning; strategic adaptive management and expansive learning; working across organisational units; working across knowledge fields; capacity and organisational development; and principle-based leadership. Practitioners develop such competencies through formal higher education and short courses plus course-activated networks and “on the job” learning. The paper adds to the literature on sustainability competencies and raises questions regarding forms of hybrid learning suitable for developing technical, relational and transformative competencies. A national learning needs assessment methodology and tools for customised organisational learning needs assessments are shared. The assessment methodology is novel in this context and the workplace-based tools, original.
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- Date Issued: 2018