From Policy to the Classroom: Train Teachers to Make SDGs Real for Students
On 26-28 August, the ASEAN Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Dialogue (ACSDSD) with the ASEAN Association-Thailand and Mahidol University, will hold a 3-day Training of Trainers workshop at Mahidol’s Salaya campus, built on one goal: turning the global SDG framework, especially on SDG4 on ‘Quality Education” into real life lessons for educators/teachers at the high school level in Thailand to use and to be upskill in order to support high school students to be resilient to the challenges and opportunities of the modern 21st Century world.
In many cases, Thai educators/teachers still lack the training, tools, and locally-relevant materials to teach sustainability in a way that connects to students’ daily lives. This workshop invests directly in closing that gap, training 20 school administrators and 40 teachers from 20 Bangkok schools to become master trainers in their own institutions.
The workshop’s core design is a policy-to-community pathway. The SDGs are a global policy framework; schools are where that framework meets everyday community life. By equipping teachers as the delivery point, the project translates SDG targets into locally relevant classroom activities. The main expected outcomes are (1) to guide high school students to give importance in attaining SDGs in their own way, especially to carry home what they have learnt in the classroom to their families and neighborhoods and (2) to increase the mindset of educators/teachers to incorporate sustainable development and SDGs courses in the high school curriculum. Through a hands-on Train-the-Trainer approach, it is expected that participated educators/teachers will become change-makers who help students question, act on, and eventually champion sustainability issues in their own respective families and communities.
