Foundational teachers’ greening curriculum readiness for advancing education for sustainable development targets in Sub-Saharan Africa

Climate change, occasioned by extreme weather events, rising temperatures, and environmental degradation, presents an urgent and multifaceted challenge to livelihoods and quality learning outcomes in developing countries. While scholarly studies on foundational learning emphasise literacy and numeracy outcomes, they tend to overlook scholar-practitioners’ knowledge for creative pedagogy that guides greening curriculum readiness for climate sustainability in many third-world nations. The study proposed the kinds of pedagogical competencies foundational teachers should possess for integrating greening concepts into the national school curriculum towards the achievement of the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) targets in Africa’s marginalised communities. Using a pamphlet approach characterised by dialogic and illustrative material from experts’ stables, the Learning Sciences philosophy guided expositions shared to build greening curriculum readiness in marginalised early grade classrooms. The study advanced a green pedagogical framework, including teacher continuous professional development. Greening assessment, learner reflexivity, problem-solving and climate projects that celebrate indigenous knowledge and ESD readiness for Sub-Saharan African foundational learning. Practically, the model will impact sustainability learning goals, including transdisciplinary knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and climate adaptation in marginalised communities. Also, climate-resilient discourse and foundational pedagogy policy must be expanded beyond curriculum propositions to conceptualise environmental challenges for children in vulnerable communities.