Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires the empowerment of learners through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), already at primary level. Teacher education for the SDGs is a focus of ESD. However, many teachers in Madagascar are underqualified and show knowledge gaps regarding ESD. This paper aims at identifying starting points for an ESD-oriented further development of teacher training, considering regionally relevant issues. Teaching Sustainable Development issues requires procedural knowledge. This paper reports on (i) Malagasy primary school teachers’ (n = 286) teaching and learning prerequisites regarding land-use and health issues compared to expert knowledge, (ii) modeling teachers’ respective procedural knowledge with the Rasch Partial Credit Model and validation studies, and on (iii) comparison of groups of teachers differentiated by diversity dimensions, e.g., teaching at rural or urban schools. The teachers underestimated land-use and health courses of action regarding effectiveness and possibility of implementation, compared to experts. IRT modeling resulted in two distinct knowledge dimensions, i.e., land use and health (latent correlation: 0.31). Rural teachers showed higher procedural land-use knowledge than urban teachers. No differences occurred regarding health knowledge. The paper argues for ESD-focused reorientation of teacher training, considering regional specificities of land-use topics, e.g., regarding vanilla and rice cultivation in North-East Madagascar, and health topics.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) plays a key role in Sustainable Development. In low-income countries like Madagascar, this key role is particularly relevant to primary education. However, the curricula lack a comprehensive ESD approach that incorporates regional issues. In Madagascar, sustainable land-use practices (Sustainable Development Goals 12, 15) and health prevention (SDGs 2, 3, 6) are educational challenges. Procedural knowledge allows problem-solving regarding unsustainable developments. We adapted and further developed a measure of ESD-relevant procedural knowledge. Considering curricula, sustainability standards, research, and a two-round Delphi study (n = 34 experts), we identified regionally relevant land-use practices and health-protective behavior. After the experts rated the effectiveness and possibility of implementation of courses of actions, we calculated an index of what to teach under given Malagasy (regional) conditions. Combined with qualitative expert comments, the study offers insights into expert views on land-use and health topics: For example, when teaching ESD in Northeast Madagascar, sustainable management of cultivation and soil is suitable, particularly when linked to vanilla production. Health-protective behavior is ultimately more difficult to implement in rural than in urban areas. These results are important for further curricula development, for ESD during primary education, and because they give insights into the topics teacher education should address.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) plays a key role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the implementation of ESD in education remains a challenge, particularly for countries such as Madagascar. ESD needs to consider regional realities to be relevant to learners. An expert study identified health and land-use courses of action for regionally relevant ESD in northeast Malagasy primary education. However, what about teacher perspectives on the possibilities for implementing such courses of action? The present think-aloud study with 10 Malagasy primary teachers used the Integrated Behavioral Model for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (IBM-WASH) to analyze factors that teachers perceive to be relevant for implementing health and also—as an innovation—land-use courses of action. The IBM-WASH model is a tool for identifying opportunities and barriers to a desired health behavior. It turned out that the local school’s surroundings, shared values and attitudes, and existing habits are important for implementing health and land-use courses of action. Therefore, regionally adapted health and land-use teaching should consider community-contextual, community-psychosocial, and habitual-psychosocial factors. Additionally, teachers mentioned the costs and benefits of land-use practices. Thus, land-use teaching should take the individual-technological factor into account. This paper argues for a regionally adapted ESD in teacher and school education.