Green education in the Black Mountains
The Green Edge talks to Ben Rawlence, co-founder and Chief Executive of the Black Mountains College in Wales.
Parties shall cooperate in taking measures, as appropriate, to enhance climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, recognizing the importance of these steps with respect to enhancing actions under this Agreement.
Article 12 of the Paris Agreement, 2016
Adopted by a total of 196 parties, the Paris Agreement explicitly places public education and the mainstreaming of climate education into curricula as a key element upon which the delivery of the Agreement itself rests. Building awareness together with a public mandate for the massive transformations that decarbonisation and realignment with planetary boundaries will entail, is critical. But, according to Ben Rawlence, co-founder and Chief Executive of Black Mountains College (BMC), “No country is doing this adequately. We've ratified the [Paris] treaty and if the Government's not going to deliver on its legal obligation, then then we're going to have to do it ourselves.”
Computer-generated image of the BMC campus. Image: BMC.
This, along with beliefs in a positive sustainable future and in the value of experiential learning over classroom-based education, were among the key drivers for the formation of BMC. Located in the Brecon Beacons National Park, the college is still in the process of building its campus, including the renovation and conversion of an upland hill farm. In conversation with The Green Edge recently, Ben told us how BMC came about. Starting with the business case in 2019, BMC was all set to launch its first Further Education (FE) programmes the following year. Like so much elsewhere the pandemic got in the way and after a year’s delay the FE programmes went live in September 2021. Now into its second cohort, more NVQs are now being added and, as from September 2023, twenty pioneers will be admitted in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University into a newly developed BA (Hons) degree in Sustainable Futures: Arts, Ecology and Systems Change.
For certain, Paris Article 12 is gradually finding its way into UK legislation. In England we have the Commons-originated Climate Education Bill and the Lords-originated Education (Environment and Sustainable Citizenship) Bill, both of which are plodding towards royal assent. More tangibly, we can see carbon literacy programmes in Manchester and elsewhere; new university faculties and departments like the Edinburgh Futures Institute; rafts of new university degree programmes like Imperial College Business School’s MSc Climate Change, Management & Finance, and Exeter University’s Circular Economy Masterclass; NVQs from City & Guilds and others; green modules (gradually) becoming part of IfATE’s occupational maps; and, of course, DfE’s Sustainability and climate change strategy. Internationally, we see examples like Universitat de Barcelona, where students demonstrated and demanded a climate crisis module irrespective of the courses they’re doing; perhaps we will see this happen across UK universities too (the new modules, we mean, not necessarily the student demonstrations).
For BMC, a key enabler was Wales’ own Well-being of Future Generations Act, which pre-dated the Paris Agreement. Ben explains: “There's a lot of work being done underpinning the Future Generations Act. Although it was passed in 2015, it's taken quite a long time to see its effect rolling out culturally. The other key piece of legislation is the new curriculum for Wales, which gets away from the rote learning approach in England and has a much more expansive possibility for teachers to take the lead and incorporate creativity and climate into curricula.”
For Ben, experiential learning is essential: “It’s not just the curriculum, but the way it's taught. That's why we're on a farm. A lot of the learning takes place outside and we use a lot of embodied practices to enhance the learning outcomes. We know a lot from neuroscience and educational psychology that lectures often only work in conjunction with other practices which allow for integration and reflection.
“Classrooms are really unhelpful in bringing stuff to life.”
Image: BMC
Since starting The Green Edge, we’ve been keen observers of new institutions – educational and otherwise – built or building around sustainability and the drive towards Net Zero, and developing the types of interdisciplinary people the world will need to make it all happen. We could, for instance, draw comparisons between BMC and another newcomer we’ve spent time with over the last few months, the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS). Ben agrees there are some similarites, but only to a point. He says, “There are significant differences [between BMC and LIS]. We're focused on one problem, while LIS is focused on many.” Point noted, Ben.
One thing BMC and LIS do have in common, though, is interest in their offerings. In BMC’s case, a recent open day for the new degree course drew 60 people across a broad demographic: mature students looking to retrain; school leavers or people on gap years; even a retiree or two. The common thread is their appreciation of the importance of the problem. Ben again: “This is a place where people are drawn together by values and commitment and a sense of urgency. We're a mission-aligned institution focused on climate as an overarching problem. It's not a subject, it's a new era in human and planetary history, and it changes everything. So this is the kind of university experience that speaks to people who might never have considered going to university. We've got people choosing us over Oxbridge, and that was always what I was hoping for.”
Growth is very much on BMC’s agenda. The three Level 2 NVQs – in Regenerative Horticulture, Coppicing and Greenwood Trades, and Nature Recovery – will shortly be added to with Level 3s in Agroecology and Land Systems, while a suite of Renewable Energy NVQs is also being considered. And while the student limit of the existing campus may be reached quite quickly, scaling the NVQs through other partners in Wales is a possibility because, as Ben points out, the college has developed curricula and approaches which can easily be shared.
Looking further afield, BMC has already received initial enquiries for international franchising from educational institutions in countries as widely spread as South Africa, Australia and Panama, while bespoking courses for organisations like banks has also been the subject of enquiry. Even online modules – initially resisted during the pandemic as not fitting into BMC’s desired teaching model – might become part of the portfolio.
Growth will also change the college’s business model. To date, the model has operated more as a social enterprise, with income largely from grants and private donors. As the college grows, fee income will overtake and then outstrip grants and donations. At its current rate of growth, that crossover point could come within the next year or two.
And meanwhile, it seems, there’s no shortage of candidates for teaching staff. This recent piece on the college drew much interest. “The day after we were featured in The Guardian”, says Ben, “we received 150 CV's.”
We thank Ben Rawlence of Black Mountains College for talking to us for this Green Edge post. We wish Ben and BMC every success in their endeavours.