Officially established in 2004, the Centre for Environmental Education & Research (CEER), University of Malta has been active in education for sustainable development (ESD) since 1991, as the Environmental Education Unit, when it was commissioned by UNESCO to embark on a research project to explore ways of infusing environmental education in primary teacher education.
Since then CEER explored ways of promoting ESD not only across teacher education programmes, but also throughout the country. Initially, the work focused on providing ESD training courses and supervising research at the undergraduate level. The main themes and the specific research agenda of CEER revolved around the development of curriculum material and the investigation into effective methodologies on how to carry out effective educational programmes in the formal education sector.
CEER also extended its field of activity to include work within the community, cooperation with governmental and non-governmental organisations, and networking with local and regional groups/individuals to initiate joint projects. Owing to the spread of its field of activity, the centre can safely maintain that it has become the main ESD agency in the country.
The following is a brief list of the tasks performed by CEER:
It was through CEER that back in 2007 we were introduced to permaculture as an approach to the holistic development of the human person in harmony with its environment. From that time onwards, CEER offered its expertise in the organisation of courses both for the training of staff and the education of the general public, accompanied by personal mentoring for the further development of the project leading to the creation of Inteko.
