Developing a Monitoring Instrument to Measure Extracurricular and Non-formal Activities which Promote Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

The goal on Education is 1 of 17 Sustainable Development Goals that comprises a target to ensure all learners around the world have an opportunity to develop the competencies to promote sustainable approaches to living, including appreciating of cultural diversity, non-violence, and gender equality. Extracurricular activities and non-formal education (ENA) provides a non-traditional space for learning global citizenship and sustainable development. Around the world, communities have organized education programs and activities for youth outside school to learn the values and practices of being global citizens. Research shows, however, that most efforts to review and improve ENA for global citizenship and sustainable development have focused on summative evaluations with little attention to formative approaches of monitoring. Drawing on basic principles of action research, sustainable professional development, and education quality enhancement, a monitoring framework emerges to support organizations around the world in measuring progress towards education for global citizenship and sustainable development. This framework also suggests (1) inclusive monitoring spaces like internal reviews and online social networking platforms, (2) roles of stakeholders like donor agencies in institutionalizing monitoring practices, (3) instruments and measurable scales to facilitate dialogues that review program objectives and action plans, and (4) challenges in inclusive and sustainable monitoring tools and approaches.