Browsing by Subject "skill"

Abstract: Forest education is an essential component in achieving environmental, social, and economic development goals (FAO, 2020). The requirements for new forest professionals are changing (Jegatheswaran et al., 2018). Demands at the workplaces are evolving nowadays relatively fast, putting pressure towards faster adaptation in education programs (Arevalo et al., 2010). In some cases, old education schemes are not able to provide sufficient skills and competencies for new professionals (Jegatheswaran et al., 2018). Comparing the global situation has remained a challenge due to lack of comparable global data. The survey that this study is based on was produced by the Global Forest Education Project during 2020-2021 (Rekola & Sharik, 2022. This survey aimed for all levels of education from primary school to tertiary education (Rekola & Sharik, 2022). This global data set presents a unique opportunity to study forest education at a global scale. The aim of the project was to identify how the current situation is perceived and what the main challenges are for forest education in the future. The globe was split into six regions according toa classification adopted by FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization): (Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia, Near East and North Africa and North America). The survey included three different target respondent groups: Professionals, teachers, and students. This study will focus on university-level education. The focus of this study is on following topics: how different forest education topics were perceived to be covered among the study regions? Is resource availability an issue for forest education at tertiary-level? What are the most used teaching and learning approaches and what type approaches educators would like to use more? Do skill and competencies of graduating students meet needs for social and market needs and do all respondent groups have similar views about the situation? Forest education topics had similar trends among the regions, but some topics had some regional variation. E.g., in Europe and Central Asia and North America did put less focus on agroforestry when compared to other regions. The general trend in answers among the regions was that in North America perceived coverage of topics was highest. Near east and North Africa had lowest mean response values and the other regions had quite similar perception about the coverage of different forest education topics. Same trend that was noticeable in education topics can be recognized in resources available for the education, were highest mean response value came from North America and the lowest one from Near East and North Africa. There was also some regional variation E.g., In Africa the availability of teachers was higher than other resources when compared to other regions. Lectures was the most used teaching method in every study region. project-based learning, practical field training and problem-based learning were the three methods that teachers would prefer to use more. The readiness of graduating students to enter the workforce was perceived to be highest in North America and lowest in Near East and North Africa. Among the respondent groups most pessimistic view about the readiness of a graduating student to enter the workforce was from professionals and teachers. All covered topics were perceived to have global mean response value “less then sufficiently covered”, which indicates that the coverage of most of the topics should be increased globally. Only in Europe and Central Asia and in North America resources available for education reached threshold “moderately available”, especially in Africa and Near East and North Africa there seems to be a lack of resources for education. Despite this in Africa the readiness of graduating students was similar to Europe and Central Asia.