The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nation’s International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) and International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) global forest education project is undertaking an ambitious global survey on the status of forest education. 

The survey covers all formal levels of education, including primary and secondary schools, forestry technical and vocational institutions (TVET), universities and colleges. This is the first time that such an effort to collect comprehensive information on forest education is being undertaken. It will provide information on subjects taught and competencies gained by students, teaching approaches used, digital competence of teachers and students, educational resources available, readiness of forest graduates for the workplace, key education initiatives and key education experts.

The survey defines forest education as education related to forests, trees outside forests and other wooded land, (i.e. natural forests, forest plantations, woodlands, agroforestry systems and urban forests).  It covers education delivered through programmes of forestry and forest sciences as well as programmes of broader scope (e.g. natural resource management and environmental sciences).

The survey is being carried out by regional lead partners in the six regions of the world. The partners include the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE); the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD); The Centre for People and Forests (RECOFTC); Michigan Technological University, the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the University of Helsinki (UH).

Three questionnaires have been designed to collect data from various types of respondents:

• Q1 targets government agencies, non-governmental organizations, forest owners’ associations, business organizations and labour unions.
• Q2 targets teachers and administrators in primary, secondary, forestry technical and vocational education and training (TVET) schools, and forest-related programmes in colleges and universities.
• Q3 targets students of forestry and forest-related programmes in TVET institutions, colleges and universities.

You are invited to respond to one or more of the questionnaires. To access the survey, click here. Once in, you will be able to select the questionnaire you wish to fill out and your preferred language translation.

The FAO-ITTO-IUFRO Global Forest Education Project is coordinating its efforts with a complementary project entitled “Global student networking and green jobs in the forest sector” and is led by the European Forest Institute (EFI) in partnership with the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) and IUFRO. 

The EFI-IFSA-IUFRO project is also funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). The topics of forest education and forest employment are closely connected. The complementary survey “Educating towards forest-related employment” among university/college students and recent graduates in forest-related programmes carried out by the EFI-IFSA-IUFRO project shall deliver in-depth insights into employment aspects. 

Your support in completing that complementary survey is highly appreciated.
More information: https://ifsa.net/efi-ifsa-iufro-project/

Regional and global assessments on the status of forest education

Six regional assessment reports on the status of forest education will be completed using the survey responses, a literature search and interviews of forest education experts as inputs.  The six reports will be made available on this website once they are completed:

• Africa
• Asia and the Pacific
• Europe and Central Asia
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• North Africa and Near East
• North America

A global assessment report will synthesize the findings of the six regional reports.

The draft regional assessment report and the global assessment report will be used as background documents for the International Conference on Forest Education. For more information, please contact Andrew Taber at Andrew.Taber@fao.org