Issue - meetings

By Councillor Mary Campbell - Supporting Teach the Future

“Council notes the positive work being undertaken by ‘Teach the Future’, a campaign group led by young people in schools and higher education, trying to ensure that all students are substantively taught about the climate emergency and ecological crisis.

Council resolves to support Teach the Future by requesting the Council Leader writes to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to express Council’s support for the following asks –

ASK 1:             A government commissioned review into how the whole of the Scottish formal education system is preparing students for the climate emergency and ecological crisis which offers recommendations for action at a local authority and individual school level.

ASK 2:             Inclusion of the climate emergency and ecological crisis in teacher education and a new professional teaching qualification.

Ask 3:              Increased priority for sustainability in school inspections and publicly influencing educational ranking.

ASK 4:             A Scottish Climate and Biodiversity Emergency Education Act.

Council also requests a report to the Education, Children and Families Committee meeting in March outlining the response to the letter and detailing the work Edinburgh Council is doing to embed learning about the climate emergency and the ecological crisis. This should include planned curriculum work, the Climate Literacy training programme, the work of the Sustainability Board, and how children and young people are being empowered to participate in these changes.”