TWO years after Learning and Teaching Scotland produced its report on Education for Citizenship, Fife College plans to pilot a citizenship course in August which I believe will be the first in Scotland. There is a glaring need for such a development.

In both primary and secondary schools to varying degrees in terms of the 5-14 guidelines, young people now have an awareness of their environment and are also introduced to the concept of sustainability. It is now necessary to build on these foundations in terms of a further education course.

Education, defined generally, should above all be concerned with the development of the individual and their responsibility for the welfare of others and should be viewed in the context of lifelong learning. Obligations and duties to society must be stressed as well as rights and responsibilities.

It must have as one of its goals to foster and encourage a responsibility for citizenship as well as promoting a sustainable environment on our planet. Interdependence is equally as important as enterprise. This is the philosophy behind the new course.

It is undoubtedly the case that we live in an economically competitive world. However, too much of an emphasis on the competitive nature of society and solely on the individual (as parodied in Mrs Thatcher’s grotesque phrase “there is no such thing as a society”) means we ignore at our peril the huge benefits associated with interdependence and co-operation.

Unless we harness these qualities global catastrophe could follow as we exhaust the basis from which all wealth springs, the fruits of the earth and of our labours.

Fine words you might say. Nevertheless, how does this translate into practical realities concerning further and secondary education?

The culture of lifelong learning is at last beginning to take root. Indeed it could be said that the student (and I emphasise the term “student” in contrast to “consumer”, which presumes that people are passive recipients of some kind of educational “product”) is now faced with almost bewildering choices, ranging from colleges, online learning, the Open University, traditional universities and informal further education. This makes the role of career guidance and advice all the more crucial.

But in areas of multiple deprivation there is often what might be described as an “anti-education” culture. The necessary bridge building between schools, further education and communities whose lives have been blighted by poverty, alcohol and drug abuse will be no easy task - but it must be addressed. Policies of social inclusion can only be meaningful if educational outreach work is properly funded and planned on a national basis.

Let us not forget that education never really ends - we should see it as part of a holistic process that is concerned with the development of the individual and their place in society. At further education level, and indeed in schools, we need to encourage the responsibilities of citizenship and sustainability as well as those of entrepreneurship and competition.

A society of the “market-place”, wholly governed by market forces, would be a very ethically vacuous and exploitative one. To a certain extent it is already here and we need to change it. We must always remember that it is people who create markets. Markets do not control us. We control them.

Jim Park is the Scottish Green Party’s spokesperson on education and a lecturer in social science and education at Fife College. He writes in a personal capacity.