As Colin Bangay and others in this blog series have shown, we are already facing increased intensity of extreme weather events and the collapse of biodiversity.
As the UN Secretary General said at the recent biodiversity summit ‘‘Without nature, we have nothing.” This crisis is directly related to the heating of the planet caused by decades of deadly greenhouse gas pollution.
Low and lower-middle income countries are disproportionately suffering the consequences of the unsustainable exploitation of the earth’s natural resources, often in the name of ‘development’ by industrialized, high-income countries.
As recent data from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) and the 2016 Global Educational Monitoring Report have shown, we are now facing the prospect of losing the educational gains of the past 50 years.
This is largely because countries have been forced to deal with the costs of extreme weather events, rebuild schools that have been destroyed, or simply try to catch up on lost learning time rather than investing in system improvements that benefit the poorest and most marginalized children.
The social and economic impacts of the planetary emergency caused by climate change, greenhouse gas pollution and biodiversity collapse are not future threats – they are here now.
Transforming assessment to empower students to take action on climate change
Education systems need to be transformed to reflect this reality and assessment systems play a critical role in shaping and supporting this transformation.
As all teachers and education practitioners know, what we measure in our schools– both informally through classroom assessments and formally in end of year or end of phase examinations – has a huge impact on the content and approach to teaching in the classroom.
We therefore need to make sure that we measure what matters – and nothing matters more than ensuring children and young people understand the causes of the existential threat to the planet – and that assessments include practical actions and creative solutions to these problems.
Recent innovative work on assessment has focused on the needs of children and young people who are poorly served by traditional approaches to education. These approaches are often based on contextually inappropriate curricula and assessment systems that are overloaded.
Few low-income countries have institutionalized standardized assessment systems to monitor learning over time. Even when student learning data is collected, it is often underutilized due to limited capacity and resource challenges.
In recent years, experts have been working on developing reliable ways of measuring skills and aptitudes such as creativity, curiosity, problem solving and the ability to work collaboratively with peers.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2025, led by the Australian Council for Educational Research1, will include a strong focus on science, including assessment of students’ ‘appreciation of how knowledge is developed, and ability to navigate incorrect use of knowledge such as climate change denial or the anti-vaccination movement.’
Developing and supporting these critical thinking and problem-solving skills will empower children and young people to find their own solutions and call for changes in government actions and policies that will be essential to reverse the damage done and avert the worst impacts of the emergency.