Enhancing sustainable development through education

HAMK Global provides services, teacher training and consultation in educational reforms globally. Often the target countries of HAMK Global tackle some of the societal and economical challenges identified in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the development of their educational system is seen as one of the significant factors to create positive change.

HAMK Global addresses the SDGs in its own operational values and practical actions by providing an example of quality education, equality, development of human capacity, wellbeing, innovation, and green and sustainable way of working. The educational programmes are designed in a way that they promote these values and create understanding of sustainable development.

On the other hand, the system wide development in different levels of education enhances the quality of teaching and learning and thus, eventually increases the work abilities and employability of young people leading towards wellbeing and better innovation in the world of work. Further, the impact of the HAMK Global services is carefully considered and the processes are designed to enhance the participation and capacitation of local actors to ensure that all knowledge and created improvements are distributed and rooted wider in the local context.

The participants of HAMK Global programmes are often teachers who witness the grievance of these bigger challenges in their daily work.

The participants of HAMK Global programmes are often teachers who witness the grievance of these bigger challenges in their daily work. These teachers are often highly concerned of these phenomena but lack of tools to affect them in practice. The HAMK Global programmes provide them empowerment in their profession, deepened knowledge of pedagogical solutions and tools to address the challenges in the grassroot level to improve the quality of education and wellbeing of their students.

The programmes also include an element of practical development and these projects, designed by the teachers, often address topics that are very relevant for the sustainable development in their own context (e.g. enhancing equality, increasing wellbeing in schools, capacitation of the community, environmental education, and protection). The publication Human and Nature (eds. Arto Mutanen, Mervi Friman, Mauri Kantola & Taru Konst) provides some Brazilian examples of how HAMK Global alumni teachers promote sustainable development in their own context. The publication can be read and downloaded here.