Sustainable
Development Education Panel:
Survey of Youth Work
3. The youth work curriculum
Attempts to secure a curriculum for youth work through a series of Ministerial conferences in the early 1990's failed, mainly because the youth service was unwilling to sign up organisations predicated on the principle of voluntarism, to a set of ideas which seemed to be centrally prescribed. However, the service did agree to a set of common principles which they believed should form the foundation of effective youth work - that it should be enabling, educative, participative and promote equal opportunities. The participative principle includes a reference to young people affecting "their own and other young people's lives and their environment". Since then local authority youth services and voluntary youth organisations have used these as a basis for drafting their own curriculum statements. However, these statements are somewhat distant in conception and application from the kind of curriculum frameworks normally associated with more formal education provided by schools and colleges. For example, they do not tend to specify the kinds of learning outcome to be achieved nor the criteria by which such outcomes might be assessed.
6.1 More recently, attempts have been made to replace the soft focus in which the goals of personal and social development tend to be expressed, with much sharper outcomes. For example, the curriculum framework known as Getting Connected, developed and currently being piloted by the National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE) and National Youth Agency (NYA) Young Adult Learners Partnership has specified what are now commonly referred to as 'soft' outcomes and criteria. These enable those who work in the informal education sector to measure the learning and achievements of young people who want to build their self-esteem and emotional literacy. They focus very much on values and attitudes, the connections between thinking, feeling and behaving, the inner world of young people and their interpersonal relationships as much as on the skills and knowledge they need for managing in everyday life.
6.2 A curriculum framework which attempts to specify the outcomes of learning for sustainable development would be a useful addition. This would foster a more outward-looking perspective, by seeking to stimulate young people's engagement in their own communities and the wider world; and connect it with the values and beliefs which underpin their own worlds.
6.3 A curriculum framework which comprised a twin focus on personal growth and sustainable development could provide a helpful structure in which the different dimensions of youth work and its kaleidoscopic activities could be set out, explored and explained. This could do much to bring what are sometimes seen as marginal themes or topics (environmental and global awareness) into the mainstream of youth work, improve standards of practice, as well as the quality of life for young people and future generations.
Links with the National Curriculum
"Education must enable all pupils to respond positively to the opportunities and challenges of the rapidly changing world in which we live and work. In particular, they need to be prepared to respond as individuals, parents, workers and citizens to the rapid expansion of communication technologies, changing modes of employment and new work and leisure patterns resulting from economic migration and the continued globalisation of the economy and society"
DfEE/QCA Consultation Paper on Draft Revisions to the National Curriculum
May 1999
The need for a youth work curriculum framework which fosters learning for sustainable development has been given added impetus by the proposed revisions to the National Curriculum announced by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment in May 1999. These are welcome in so far as the rationale includes the statement that the curriculum should "develop pupils' awareness, understanding and respect for the environment in which they live and secure their commitment to sustainable development at a personal, local, national and global level". However the means for doing this are as yet hard to detect. There is a statement in the proposed revisions to science and geography that "current requirements in relation to education for sustainable development have been clarified, particularly at Key Stages 3 and 4, to reflect the work of the panel for sustainable development education". This gives rise to cautious optimism but only in geography is this made more explicit, suggesting that the subject links between science and the arts and humanities contribute to environmental education and education for sustainable development.
6.4 The Government's proposals also include a framework for personal, social and health education and citizenship which is to be made statutory at Key Stages 3 and 4 from 2002. As it will only comprise 5% of the National Curriculum and it will doubtless have to accommodate competing demands, there is clearly only limited scope for incorporating the kinds of learning outcomes set out in the Panel's submission to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
6.5 It is therefore all the more important to select and adapt from these outcomes those which youth workers could realistically aspire to secure in young people through their contacts with them in informal settings, often providing greater experiential learning than is usually available in school or college.
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Page published 09 June
2000;
Page last modified
20 August, 2002