Developing a Holistic Approach to Implementing Education for Sustainable Development Across a Higher Educational Institute: A Longitudinal Study of the University of the West of England, Bristol

Author(s):  
James W. S. Longhurst ◽  
Georgina K. Gough ◽  
Marcus Grant ◽  
Sarah Hills
Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 972-978
Author(s):  
Manisha Jetly ◽  
Dr. Nandita Singh

Education for sustainable development (ESD) enjoys a huge momentum worldwide in which the role of teachers for making sustainable development goals a reality has been recognized significantly. Teachers through their knowledge, attitudes and skills can bring the learning about these concepts to the curriculum and class room interaction and are in a position to influence their students. Therefore it is pertinent, that teachers are sensitised towards these issues, so that they prepare and nurture their students for making appropriate and responsible choices which contribute to a sustainable future. At this juncture it becomes crucial to understand their priorities and awareness level in context of the sustainable development. The present research paper aims to analyse the perception of forty post graduate pre-service teachers of the Chandigarh region, towards ESD through the dimensions of economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, social sustainability and cultural sustainability. For this researchers have adopted qualitative content analysis methodology for an in-depth study of the subjective responses through an open ended question. The findings suggest that most of the respondents associated the perception of ESD strongly with environmental sustainability. It is noted that the pre-service teachers lack a holistic approach towards ESD. On the basis of the findings it is recommended that there is an urgent need of integrating the concept of ESD consciously and conscientiously in India’s teacher education programmes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 392
Author(s):  
Estibaliz Sáez de Cámara ◽  
Idoia Fernández ◽  
Nekane Castillo-Eguskitza

Since the United Nations (UN) approved the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in 2015, higher education institutions have increasingly demonstrated their commitment by supporting several initiatives. Although a great deal of progress has been made, there is still a lack of integrative approaches to truly implement Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in higher education. This paper presents a practical case that illustrates how to design and articulate SDGs within an institutional setting adopting a holistic approach: EHUagenda 2030 plan of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). It is based on empirical inquiry into global and holistic sustainable transformation and a real experience to move towards a verifiable and pragmatic contribution to sustainability. This plan describes the contribution to 12 of the 17 SDGs, along with three sectorial plans (Equality Campus, Inclusion Campus and Planet Campus), as well as the refocus of the UPV/EHU’s Educational Model and the panel of sustainable development indicators, which addresses the technical aspects of monitoring the SDGs. The methodology (mapping; mainstreaming; diagnosis and definition and, finally, estimation) is systematic and replicable in other universities yet to embark upon this integration. This case study makes a contribution towards the understanding of the complexity of the changes in Higher Education and the ways to approach it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Brudermann ◽  
Ralf Aschemann ◽  
Manfred Füllsack ◽  
Alfred Posch

Higher education for sustainable development plays a crucial role in the transformation of society towards a more sustainable pathway of development. The new trends in society and technology experienced in the course of the fourth industrial revolution come with challenges, but also provide opportunities. In this paper, we reflect on the conceptual basis of education for sustainable development as approached at the University of Graz, Austria, and contrast this basis with the expectations stated by students. The results showed that students acknowledged the high importance of digital competencies and found it highly important to be confronted with future-oriented topics and contents. Interestingly, students seemed skeptical about online course formats and digitalization of teaching and clearly preferred the interactive classroom experience. Students also rated international topics and transdisciplinary thinking as fairly important. Interestingly, a relatively high share of students only saw mediocre added value in experiencing international classrooms, and in having international teachers, when it comes to meeting their top priority, which is being competitive in the job market. Education for sustainable development in the future will not only need to prepare students for international, interdisciplinary, and digital environments, but also will need to meet the expectations of demanding and ambitious students and provide them with bright career prospects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Anthoula Maidou ◽  
Katerina Plakitsi ◽  
Hariton M. Polatoglou

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an important issue for the education of students worldwide becauseit offers knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to ensure a sustainable future for humanity at local andglobal levels, which is nowadays becoming critical. The decade 2005-2014 called ‘Decade of ESD’ was an initiativeby the United Nations to promote ESD worldwide, followed currently by the Agenda 2030. ESD should be anongoing subject for students in formal and informal education, at all educational levels, and in life-long learningprograms, starting with early childhood education. This paper reports on the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes ofpre-service early childhood teachers of the University of Ioannina, Greece, on ESD using a quantitative approachutilizing a questionnaire. Our findings showed that most pre-service teachers had knowledge on environmentalaspects but did not consider societal and financial matters to be aspects of ESD. Furthermore, most students hadnever ESD lessons during their formal education. Our findings depict that pre-service students believe that ESD is animportant issue, that it should be included in the curricula and that lessons on EDS during their studies woulddevelop their ability to teach ESD to their students.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Majken Korsager ◽  
Eldri Scheie

AbstractThis article presents a qualitative case study exploring how students’ partici-pation in a project about sustainable development (SD) influences their sustainability consciousness. Sustainability consciousness is a concept that integrates the environmental, economic and social dimensions of SD with knowledge, skills and attitudes. This study follows up the results from a recent quantitative large-scale study conducted in Sweden, investigating the impact of education for sustainable education (ESD) on students’ sustainability consciousness. Results from our study show that the students’ sustainability consciousness is dominated by a mono-dimensional approach from the environmental perspective. However, their motivation to act (Attitudes) was highest within the economic dimension. The skills they expressed they had attained, were mainly practical and mostly within the environmental dimension and to some extent the social dimension. Analysis of the project showed both a lack of collaboration between the teachers and a lack of explicit teaching, which could explain why the holistic approach to SD was under-communicated to the students. The students’ sustainability consciousness seemed improved after a re-design of the ESD project, where the main changes were more explicit teaching and learning goals, and adding Norwegian as a subject. The results are discussed in relation to what should be emphasized in ESD projects in order to empower pupils and students for action competence for SD.Keywords: education for sustainable development, students’ sustainability consciousnessElever og utdanning for bærekraftig utvikling – hva er viktig? En case-studie om elevers bærekraftbevissthet etter deltakelse i et prosjekt om bærekraftig utviklingSammendragDenne artikkelen presenterer en kvalitativ case-studie som utforsker hvordan elevers deltakelse i et prosjekt om bærekraftig utvikling påvirker deres bærekraftbevissthet. Bærekraftbevissthet er et konsept som integrerer den miljømessige, økonomiske og sosiale dimensjonen av bærekraftig utvikling med kunnskap, ferdigheter og holdninger. Denne studien følger opp resultatene fra en nylig kvantitativ storskalaundersøkelse gjennomført i Sverige, der effekten av utdanning for bærekraftig utvikling (UBU) på elevers bærekraftbevissthet er undersøkt. Resultatene fra denne studien viser at elevenes bærekraftbevissthet domineres av en mono-dimensjonal tilnærming fra miljøperspektivet. Men deres motivasjon til å handle (Holdninger) var høyest innenfor den økonomiske dimensjonen. De ferdighetene de uttrykte de hadde oppnådd, var hovedsakelig praktiske og for det meste innenfor miljødimensjonen og noen innen den sosiale dimensjonen. Analyse av prosjektet viste at det var både mangel på samarbeid mellom lærerne og mangel på eksplisitt undervisning, noe som kunne forklare hvorfor den holistiske tilnærmingen til bærekraftig utvikling ble underkommunisert til elevene. Elevenes bærekraftbevissthet ble forbedret noe etter re-design av prosjektet, hvor hovedendringene var mer eksplisitt undervisning og læringsmål samt å inkludere norsk som emne. Resultatene diskuteres med sikte på hva som bør vektlegges i prosjekter i bærekraftig utvikling for å gi elever og studenter handlingskompetanse i bærekraftig utvikling.Nøkkelord: utdanning for bærekraftig utvikling, elevers bærekraftbevissthet


Author(s):  
Kageeporn Wongpreedee ◽  
Karnitta Sinsahuang ◽  
Janjira Intanakom ◽  
Wanlaya Tanechpongtamb ◽  
Pansiri Phansuwan-Pujito

It has been long known that quality assurance (QA) is a system to develop quality standards in Thailand.  However, it is not easy to implement the concept throughout a whole organization, for example, to include in a university, faculty members, program specifications, management team, and so on.   This paper is to explain a case of strategic management of quality assurance using education for sustainable development (ESD) in the university with social enterprise concept.  An example of the university with the mission statement of “to serve society” can drawn more attention using ESD concept to faculty in stead of QA regulation concept.  The conceptual framework of the implementation was shown how QA can be developed in curriculum embedding with an ESD concept.  


2017 ◽  
pp. 805-827
Author(s):  
Vassilios Makrakis

The UNESCO Chair ICT in Education for Sustainable Development in cooperation with the RCE Crete (Regional Centre of Expertise) on Education for Sustainable Development responding to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD 2005-2014) took the initiative to establish a North-South Network for embedding sustainability in higher education institutions. A Consortium with 12 universities (six from Europe and six from Middle East) led by the UNESCO Chair and the RCE Crete at the University of Crete prepared a proposal submitted to the Tempus- European Commission programme for funding. The RUCAS (Reorient University Curricula to address Sustainability) project, studied in this chapter, has initiated various activities in the partner countries' institutions, which seem to exert significant curricular changes. The changes include the revision of courses, building the appropriate infrastructure, the development of an online community of practice and the RUCAS Toolkit that are being used as drivers for reorienting university curricula to address sustainability. As a result, a growing number of academics in the partner institutions are concerned with the current sustainability crisis and claim for a transformative shift in what they teach and how teaching is practiced.


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