Education for sustainable development and teacher training in Italy: the RiGenerazione Scuola plan

he sustainability culture must be understood as the transformative possibility of proposing a new educational paradigm that pedagogically qualifies lifestyles in the context of an integrated human ecology. This challenging and unavoidable invitation directly calls into question teacher development. Teachers, in fact, are change agents for a more sustainable future and a new human development culture. In this regard, they must develop green and soft skills (UNESCO, 2017; 2020), which include knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, motivation, and commitment. The contribution provides a brief overview of the policy trajectory of teacher education in the context of sustainability education in Italy up to the recent Next Generation Europe initiative (The Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan). The purpose of this paper is to provide a pedagogical reflection on the recent ministerial guidelines of the “RiGenerazione Scuola” plan for school ecological and cultural transition (2022). The Plan is based on four pillars: the regeneration of knowledge, behavior, infrastructure, and opportunities, and proposes an ecological and cultural transition for the school years 2022-2025 i.e., educational interventions that aim to ‘Move towards’ a new society with new lifestyles in which human activity is in balance with nature