The topics explored in the six contributions to this issue include: non-formal environmental education of gold miners to support the adoption of sustainable gold mining techniques in Cameroon; motivational teaching techniques used by instructors of distance learning programmes to assist adult learners in achieving their educational goals; Greek preschool teachers’ readiness to teach online at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; the role of social and emotional learning in rethinking education quality in low-income countries (including case studies from Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of the Congo); the effectiveness of work-integrated learning programmes in Tanzania; and a systematic review of online work-based learning.

The Editor’s introduction considers climate change and the challenge facing advocates for change in education in an era of climate despair and growing indifference, even boredom. He argues that rather than seek common ground or compromise with those sympathetic to the continued burning of fossil fuels, we should stick to our values and identify ways in which to contribute to movements for social change, ‘to make joint purpose with them and to inspire, support and empower people to realise their own contribution’. Our best hope for a sustainable future for all, he writes, lies ‘in growing these communities of dissent and disobedience, turning them into places where people can live and work and do so differently, in accord with their values, creating a new sort of commons animated by solidarity and joint purpose’.

The important thing, he concludes, is to not wait or to leave it to others, but, instead, ‘to begin, however awkwardly, however haltingly or problematically, to work towards something better that might, in time, help us grow beyond the current political stasis’.

Access the new issue of the International Review of Education – Journal of Lifelong Learning (IRE)