Göran Finnveden, Eva Friman, Anna Mogren, Henrietta Palmer, Per Sund, Göran Carstedt, Sofia Lundberg, Barbro Robertsson, Håkan Rodhe and Linn Svärd
Since 2006, higher education institutions (HEIs) in Sweden, should according to the Higher Education Act, promote sustainable development (SD). In 2016, the Swedish Government…
Abstract
Purpose
Since 2006, higher education institutions (HEIs) in Sweden, should according to the Higher Education Act, promote sustainable development (SD). In 2016, the Swedish Government asked the Swedish higher education authority to evaluate how this study is proceeding. The authority chose to focus on education. This paper aims to produce a report on this evaluation.
Design/methodology/approach
All 47 HEIs in Sweden were asked to write a self-evaluation report based on certain evaluation criteria. A panel was appointed consisting of academics and representatives for students and working life. The panel wrote an evaluation of each HEI, a report on general findings and recommendations, and gave an overall judgement of each HEI in two classes as follows: the HEI has well-developed processes for integration of SD in education or the HEI needs to develop their processes.
Findings
Overall, a mixed picture developed. Most HEIs could give examples of programmes or courses where SD was integrated. However, less than half of the HEIs had overarching goals for integration of SD in education or had a systematic follow-up of these goals. Even fewer worked specifically with pedagogy and didactics, teaching and learning methods and environments, sustainability competences or other characters of education for SD. Overall, only 12 out of 47 got a higher judgement.
Originality/value
This is a unique study in which all HEIs in a country are evaluated. This provides unique possibilities for identifying success factors and barriers. The importance of the leadership of the HEIs became clear.
Details
Keywords
Nila Keumala, Mohammed Amer Younus, Yong Kuan, Asrul Sani Bin Abdul Razak, Muhammad Azzam Ismail and Karam M. Al-Obaidi
The increasing global concerns about the environmental degradation and climate changes oblige architecture students to apply sustainable design approaches in their studio…
Abstract
The increasing global concerns about the environmental degradation and climate changes oblige architecture students to apply sustainable design approaches in their studio projects. Therefore, renewable energy raises the expectation of providing sustainable solutions for their architectural design proposals. This paper aims to investigate the learning of students in knowledge, awareness and applicability on sustainability during their first three years of the part 1 architecture programme. Surveys were conducted on 500 students from eight architecture schools from the local universities, two architecture schools from the polytechnic colleges and three architectural schools from the overseas universities. These survey results from 335 respondents confirmed that the learning on sustainability through self (51.6%), peer (48.6%) and design studio lecturers (37.0%). These results confirmed also that most respondents did rely on pre-design assessments to develop sustainable design strategies in their final architectural design proposals. These results concluded that the perception of architecture students on learning sustainability is based mainly on other sources. These findings provide knowledge for educationists and practitioners towards the planning of architecture curriculum and the implementation of pedagogical approach in sustainability. This paper determines the most important source of learning on sustainability knowledge for students in the pedagogy at university level.