scholarly journals Volunteering to Help People with Disabilities and Less Mobile People in Transport Higher Education Institutions

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 246-258
Author(s):  
N. V. Gruver ◽  
O. M. Zemlina ◽  
R. K. Nazarova

The objective of the study was to examine the impact of organisation of volunteer movement on solving of the University tasks and on motivation of the students, particularly considering the sustainable development goals.The attention has been focused on the analysis of the mechanism and methods of implementing the capacity of volunteer movement, from the point of view of possibilities of forming socially significant qualities and value orientations in students that correspond to the needs of society and development of the transport complex, as week as the skills of legal culture and behaviour of future transport employees. A conclusion is drawn about the need to use the opportunities of volunteering as a means of self-development of the student’s personality.The study was particularly dedicated to examining the experience of the Resource Training and Methodological Centre for Training Disabled Persons and Persons with Disabilities created and operating in Russian University of Transport, main directions of increasing the efficiency of activities to create necessary conditions for accessibility of higher education for persons with disabilities in transport universities.Social survey allowed to reveal and assess the correlation of motivation and interest of participants in volunteer movement in training on the programs offered at Russian University of Transport and in participating in volunteering since most important incentives spread among the students comprise desire to help people to feel needed, as well as the desire to master new skills and acquire competences.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 4224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Zamora-Polo ◽  
Jesús Sánchez-Martín

Sustainability, as a key concept in the education field, has submitted a relevant change during the last years. Thus, there is a growing debate about its meaning. It has undergone a crucial merging of significances from many fields: Ecology, environmental awareness, but also from politics, ethics or even spiritual approaches. All these fields have been co-involved in the building of such subject concept. In this sense, this article addresses the different ways of understanding sustainability as a polyhedral concept and how sustainability can be understood under the umbrella of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Furthermore, it is proposed a conceptual framework to teach this UN Program at Higher Education, contributing to the training of undergraduate and postgraduate students from both a professional and a personal point of view. This framework is applied in a case study—in particular, in a course of Primary Teacher Degree called Didactics of Matter and Energy. This article finishes with practical consideration to build a change-maker University.


2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 383-408
Author(s):  
Melike Janßen

Abstract The paper addresses the impact of higher education reforms on academic teaching and the concrete implications of the new academic teaching requirements for the professional practice of professors. It explores how labour market requirements change the university from the point of view of professors and how they deal with these changes. The paper draws on 64 interviews with professors from Germany, which were conducted as part of a qualitative study on the consequences of performance evaluation procedures at German universities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 301 ◽  
pp. 03002
Author(s):  
Peter Čajka ◽  
Veronica Grebennikova ◽  
Hoang Manh Trung Vu ◽  
Van Tran Ngo

Our article tackles the timely and important issue of the university collaboration aimed at shaping up the sustainable urban areas and contributing to their development through the teaching and research. Universities provided qualified labour force, yield novel research solutions and act as hubs for entrepreneurial activity in urban areas. In this article, we show that even though most of the universities are concentrated in large urban centres and capital regions, many of them are located in small rural areas and have a profound effect on them. We also demonstrate the impact of universities on the sustainable development which is done through the sustainable education as well as the R&D approaches. These effects are very relevant for the co-designing of sustainable rural areas that can follow the principles of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and the green policies imposed by the majority of the local and central governments around the world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-61
Author(s):  
Floyd Morris

In 2019, the University of the West Indies Centre for Disability Studies (UWICDS) released the results of the first Regional Disability Index (RDI). The RDI was developed with the primary aim to track and rank countries within the Caribbean in terms of their efforts to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and by extension, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The RDI used a quantitative methodological framework employing a survey among government and non-governmental organizations catering to persons with disabilities in the Anglophone Caribbean to capture the data. In this paper, this researcher conducts an assessment of the major findings of the RDI in the context of building resilience among persons with disabilities in certain fundamental areas of Caribbean life. Findings relating to legislative protection, education, employment, public transportation, health care, and access to information are highlighted. The RDI, among other things, revealed that St. Vincent and the Grenadines is the top country in the Anglophone Caribbean in terms of their efforts to implement programmes and policies for persons with disabilities. We compare and contrast the findings regionally to that which is taking place in the global landscape for persons with disabilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Marie Weiss ◽  
Matthias Barth ◽  
Arnim Wiek ◽  
Henrik von Wehrden

Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends, in part, on the sustainability competencies of professionals in various fields, and thus, on the implementation of sustainability curricula in higher education. While many universities now offer sustainability curricula, and many more aspire to, there is a lack of evidence on what supports or hinders such implementation. This article presents a meta-study on 133 case studies from universities around the world and synthesizes the main drivers and barriers, identifies information gaps, and tests prominent assumptions on implementing sustainability curricula in higher education. The findings confirm that such implementation is associated with strong leadership by the university; incentives and support through professional development; concurrent implementation of sustainability in research, campus operations, and outreach; formal involvement of internal and external stakeholders as well as sustainability champions, among others. Common research protocols for case studies are needed to yield comparable data on these influencing variables and to enhance reliability of cross-case comparisons. Most sustainability programs could utilize the findings for informing their implementation processes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4524
Author(s):  
Eduardo Cejuela ◽  
Vicente Negro ◽  
Jose María del Campo

The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals are a necessity. A large number of public actions and activities in many countries go in this direction. Various indicators are used to quantitatively assess the impacts, all of which are included within product life cycle assessment. It is essential to study and assess infrastructure, as it is an important factor in emissions, as well as environmental and sustainable construction. In maritime works, the aggressiveness of seawater is an important factor that reduces the life of reinforced concrete structures, and it is necessary to search for solutions that reduce or eliminate maintenance. In this research paper, the aim is to quantitatively verify that the composite materials are viable from an environmental and resistant point of view. Concrete caissons and/or breakwater crowns for vertical breakwaters were constructed as the fundamental elements, calculating the life cycle in comparison with several contrasting examples. The first is the case of a conventional breakwater crown, built in Escombreras, southeast Spain, at the Mediterranean Sea, later simulating the impact with one reinforced with fiberglass bars. The results are encouraging and call for additional measures to further reduce maritime infrastructure indicators with much less polluting, more durable, and more sustainable solutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 184-195
Author(s):  
Svitlana Kovalivska ◽  
Andrii Shcherbyna ◽  
Vsevolod Nikolaiev

The subject of the paper є is to study the mechanisms for investing in residential renovation in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, sustainable development is considered both from the point of view of safety and environmental friendliness of residential buildings, and from the social point of view of providing housing to citizens from strategic perspective. It is shown that the current sustainable development goals, the definition of indicators of their achievement do not cover the problem of housing deterioration, which is one of the most acute for national and social security, as well as the financial stability of the state. Therefore, the achievement of SDG-11 in Ukraine is in a high risk zone given the catastrophic state of housing, the scale of the problem, and the high cost of its renovation for insolvent households; this does not solve the problem only at the expense of homeowners as follows from the essence and functions of property owners. The situation in Ukraine differs from European countries in that the state is impossible to further subsidize the owners on a large scale. This requires a combination of public investment in renovation of residential real estate with property reform, transforming part of the housing stock into social housing. As the implementation of housing projects concerns the local level, the general shortcomings of strategic management are shown, where there is no vision of communities to solve the problem. Methodology. Based on the methodological developments of the authors on the insolvency of homeowners in Ukraine (A. Shcherbyna), criticism of unjustified approaches to co-financing by residents and local authorities of renovation projects in Kyiv (O. Popeko), and the need to justify and evaluate investment projects to achieve sustainable development goals (S. Kovalivska), the article forms a comprehensive approach to solving the problem in terms of all three aspects. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to deepen the formulation and analysis of methods to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 11 "Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable" with the help of provisions on sustainable housing for citizens based on a projectoriented approach and mechanisms for financing projects using public-private partnerships of homeowners with local authorities, as well as taking into account sustainable development goals. Practical implications. The main directions of further progress in reforming property relations in the housing sector and creating tools for intensifying partnership mechanisms at the vertical and horizontal levels in the public administration system are identified. Results. The proposed methodology provides for the selection of projects for budget support and development of recommendations for their implementation, taking into account SDG in several stages: preselection based on cost-benefit analysis; assessment of the impact of the project on SDG (determination of the SDG identity of the project based on a quantitative assessment of the impact of its objectives on SDG and vice versa); determination of the volume and type of budget support (rating of projects based on a comprehensive analysis of their commercial, budgetary and social efficiency, adjusted for the level of manufacturability, export orientation, and SDG identity); development of recommendations for project implementation, which take into account the approaches to assessing the impact of the project on SDG and, conversely, the achievement of SDGs or the risks of their failure to achieve project objectives (4). Value. To link SDG with budget planning, it is proposed to introduce an additional classification of budget expenditures on SDG, which will help to reconcile strategic and budget planning with investment in order to achieve SDG, including in the process of ensuring state participation in programs and projects for renovation and construction of housing based on the concept of sustainable development.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-146
Author(s):  
Tanveer Ahmad Khan ◽  
Wasia Hamid ◽  
Mohmad Saleem Jahangir ◽  
Tabbasum Maqbool

The present study aimed to understand the experiences of disabled students while gaining higher education in Kashmir. According to the conference on the ‘Rights of Persons with Disability’, Article 24, 2(a), disabled persons should not be barred from broader education organizations due to their disability. Besides, the ‘Millennium Development Goals’ and ‘Education for All’ insist on justice, equality and quality education for all. Yet, like in other societies, in Kashmir too disabled people face a large number of obstacles while attempting to achieve higher education. The study was conducted on 21 disabled students studying at the University of Kashmir during the year 2018. The results revealed that disabled people face a large number of obstacles while accessing education and come across a vast amount of challenges such as experiencing harassment, being excluded from the university, lack of institutional support, accommodation, financial support, seminars and infrastructure and facilities necessary to obtain benefits from the equivalent quality of education as their colleague.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Natividad Blasco ◽  
Isabel Brusca ◽  
Margarita Labrador

Universities have a critical role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), both for implementing active policies and for encouraging other actors to participate. This requires having the skills and mind-sets to contribute to these challenges. The relevance and the commitment of universities to sustainability has led to the inclusion of SDGs in the strategies and agendas of these institutions. This requires the involvement of all the actors and some structural and cultural changes that put SDGs at the core of the governance and management of the university, embracing all the stakeholders. Various internal and external factors may influence the impact and success of the policies and activities aiming at achieving the SDGs, both from an overall perspective and for individual SDGs. This paper assesses the influence of some internal factors, such as the presence of universities on the internet, the level of internationalization or the availability of financial resources. Through both regression analyses and the Gephi method, our results confirm the importance of the presence on the internet, the internationalization of the university and the financial resources for research and infrastructure received from regional governments for Spanish public universities to make a greater contribution to SDGs.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 232-250
Author(s):  
Surajit Deb

The post-2015 development framework endorsed disability as an issue of social rights that is in accordance with the guidelines of United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The United Nations Statistical Commission has worked through the Inter-agency and Expert Group and the High-level Group in the formation of the indicators framework to measure the progress made by the disabled persons in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The main objective of this article is to assess the disability prevalence in India and subsequently examine its preparedness towards developing the disability indicators. We consider the Census 2011 data to provide an account of disability situations along with information on state-wise composition, types, age distribution, literacy and employment aspects. We then explain as to how the indicators framework would result in data and information demands on India’s part, which are essential for monitoring the progress of disability inclusion in the country.


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