Impact-driven education empowers students to become positive change agents in society. We firmly believe that students deserve the opportunity to develop the skills, knowledge, and values necessary to address urgent societal challenges and contribute to a more sustainable and just world that fosters inclusivity and reduces inequality.
In Impact-Driven education, we use the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a roadmap for guiding this transformative journey. These global objectives, established by the United Nations, serve as a roadmap for addressing critical issues such as poverty, inequality, and climate change while providing a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. Sustainability, within this framework, comprises a broad range of efforts aimed at ensuring a better future for both our planet and its inhabitants. Through impact-driven education, learners actively engage with topics that promote social, environmental, and economic sustainability, ultimately working towards a more equitable, resilient, and harmonious world.
Developing Students’ Impact Capacity for Societal Change
The SDGs provide a collective vision for a better world. However, progress towards this vision has been disappointingly slow. As a society, we find ourselves lacking the capacity to effectively address our increasingly complex realities. In Impact-driven education, our primary aim is to empower students to develop the competencies necessary to become effective agents of social change. This is what we call ‘Impact Capacity’.
‘Impact Capacity’ encompasses the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable students to deal with societal urgencies and make a positive impact on their communities. Through impact-driven education, we aim to equip students with the tools they need to tackle society’s grand challenges and drive meaningful change. We know this is no easy job. To realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we need a holistic understanding of what it means to be a transformational leader. In this regard, the Inner Development Goals offers a valuable framework for developing students inner growth, which is necessary for societal transformation.
Educating for the SDGs: Integrating Inner Development Goals in Impact-Driven Education
At Impact at the Core, we acknowledge that addressing complex societal challenges requires more than just external action; it requires individuals to cultivate inner capacities that enable them to navigate uncertainty, collaborate effectively, and act with integrity. The Inner Development Goals (IDGs) offer a holistic framework of transformative skills, aimed at increasing our collective abilities to effectively deal with complex challenges towards more sustainable futures. Unlike traditional educational frameworks that primarily focus on academic knowledge and skills, the IDGs prioritise inner transformation, emphasising qualities such as self-awareness, empathy, and social responsibility.
We consider this framework to be an effective blueprint that can inspire educators to intentionally integrate students' personal (or inner) development for social and environmental sustainability. This framework serves as a useful tool for realising the SDGs within impact-driven education.
Currently, the IDGs encompass 5 dimensions and 23 skills essential for becoming positive agents of change. These dimensions are:
- Being- Relationship to Self
- Thinking- Cognitive Skills
- Relating- Caring for Others and the World
- Collaborating- Social Skills
- Acting- Enabling change
Impact-driven education is strongly aligned with the Inner Development Goals (IDGs). That is why we believe it can provide a privileged arena to nurture these capacities, empowering students to become effective agents of social change. This is how Impact-driven education is valuable in supporting student’s Inner Development Goals:
Being- Relationship to Self
Reflexivity is a critical element in Impact-Driven Education. We encourage our students to reflect upon the normative components of societal urgencies and their personal and professional values of being an Erasmian. It is through reflexivity that our students learn to develop their inner compass, become more authentic, self-aware and open to learning.
Thinking- Cognitive Skills
Through Impact-Driven Education, students learn to analyse complex urgencies from their disciplinary perspective while acknowledging the value of other perspectives and sources of knowledge. Through this academic and systematic approach, students develop critical thinking, complexity awareness, perspective-taking, and other relevant cognitive skills.
Relating- Caring for Others and the World
By engaging with authentic matters of concern that affect actual communities, students learn to care for others and the world in which they live. Working with actual societal partners allows them to develop appreciation, humility, empathy, compassion and awareness of their connectedness with other (human) beings.
Collaborating- Social Skills
Fostering a vibrant learning community among students, teachers and societal partners is key in Impact-driven Education. Students work together with societal partners to understand better their societal challenges and move towards appropriate (new) directions. Simultaneously, students are encouraged to work in teams with their peers. This collaborative learning approach helps students develop communication skills, learn to co-create, develop inclusive mindset, trust and mobilisation skills.
Acting- Enabling change
In Impact-Driven societal partners and students work together to achieve value creation, guided by teachers. In line with our Erasmian values, we teach our students to act responsibly and to proactively commit themselves to contribute to society’s problems in a positive, entrepreneurial way. By engaging with real stakeholders that have actual, felt challenges, and working towards creating impact, students develop courage, creativity, optimism and perseverance.
When developing Impact-Driven Education, teachers can make use of the Inner Development Goals (IDGs) framework align their courses’ learning objectives with holistic student development. By integrating the IDGs into their curriculum design, educators can design activities that foster learners’ self-awareness, critical thinking, empathy, collaboration, and impactful action, while assessments can monitor and guide progress across these dimensions. By integrating the IDGs into Impact-driven Education, we can drive for both inner and outer transformation, empowering students to become effective agents of change in their communities and beyond.
Want to learn more?
SDG’s: https://sdgs.un.org/goals