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Since higher education institutions represent places where changes can and must occur, it is essential to improve the delivery of sustainability education. Academics are undoubtedly aware of this, but how to improve the sustainable approaches in education. Let us start with some generic tips before we pass on the environmental education for sustainability in higher education institutions.
General suggestions for the promotion of sustainability in higher education
There are several generic suggestions for improving the delivery of sustainability in higher education. For instance, among the first ones, there is the building of students’ social foundations. The latter technique helps to build students’ character and morals. Social skills are often connected to earlier schooling steps, while higher education is often attributed to academia. In every case, social framework should be supported throughout all stages of education.
Secondly, the universities and colleges should engage with local communities. Higher education institutions should fund activities and districts that support sustainability to meet the wider community’s needs. The same investment could return to the higher education institutions under the means of socio-cultural wealth. The social and economic implications will, in return, render the universities and colleges crucial in influencing societal progress.
Another option would be to create a community within higher education institutions. Communities usually work together better than single individuals. Thus the engagement and creation of community(ies) for sustainable purposes is an excellent idea to increase sustainability. For instance, it is good to create a community promoting healthy and environmentally friendly lifestyles for the staff by rewarding them as they get more beneficial and more climate-aware.
Often, leadership and relevant decision-making roles are what students look for to feel at ease of their effort when covering a specific job or position. Therefore, the last but not least solution would be to let them cover roles in sustainability projects connected to decision-making and partaking in relevant activities. They will feel that sustainable work is capable of giving them a purpose in real-life decisions.
Environmental education for sustainability
The latter solutions are for the integration and improvement of sustainability in higher education in general means. What is more, when it comes to the environment, it is the environmental education for sustainability that helps raise awareness of sustainability in the means of climate issues.
Environmental education is a process through which students develop skills, knowledge, and capacities to understand socio-cultural and ecological realities. The aim is to establish a responsible relationship with the environment and implement actions addressing environmental issues. Of course, the current times put it in a way to prioritise sustainability in the key ofclimate change.
The aim is to achieve more just and equitable development which respects nature, health, peace and cares about environmental aspects. Environmental education for sustainability respects all living forms and is socially committed to climate-related topics. It transmits knowledge and other challenges required with higher education, such as local and global awareness, critical thinking, holistic vision and interculturality.
The role of education institutions in teaching, research, preservation, dissemination and transmission of culture is of unique value to the environmental education for sustainability. The latter is the reason why sustainability has to be promoted in the higher education field. Colleges and universities should, no doubt, have a fundamental role in improving sustainable development and its principles. Nevertheless, Higher education institutions should put more attention on environmental sustainability as it is one of the most urgent ones.
ACS – ASOMI College of Sciences promotes sustainability in all its forms and is socially committed. ACS underline the importance of environmental and other sustainability and promotes its dissemination in the higher education field.
