VOLUME 19 (Supplement)

Cultivating holistic educators: Integrating ESD and the five pillars into the BES program

This study examines how the Five Pillars of Education are represented in the intended curriculum of the Bachelor of Education Studies (BES) program at the University of the Philippines Open University, in relation to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 4. The study was an exploratory single-case documentary evaluation with a structured content-mapping component. It reviewed the program learning outcomes, the 2018 BES curriculum, and published course titles and descriptions. Forty-eight catalog courses were coded for each of the five pillars (Learning to Know, Learning to Be, Learning to Do, Learning to Live Together, and Learning to Transform) as Yes (explicit contribution), Possible (potential contribution), or No (no evidence in the available description). Explicit (Yes) representation was found in 48 courses for Learning to Know (100.0%), 30 for Learning to Be (62.5%), 1 for Learning to Do (2.1%), 2 for Learning to Live Together (4.2%), and none for Learning to Transform (0.0%). Including Possible codes raised these figures to 100.0%, 87.5%, 29.2%, 60.4%, and 31.3%, respectively. These figures describe curricular visibility rather than implementation quality, student attainment, graduate competence, or contributions to SDG outcomes. The study is a preliminary documentary assessment intended to support review of the BES program in relation to the university’s sustainable development mandate, within which ESD is embedded. The findings show limited explicit attention to applied learning (Learning to Do), learning to live together, and transformative learning (Learning to Transform), and provide a baseline for aligning program learning outcomes and course descriptions with learning activities and assessments. Future work should validate the codes against syllabi and assessment tasks and examine teaching practice, student work, and alumni outcomes to determine how the intended curriculum is enacted and attained.