Njala University, as one of the leading higher education institutions in Sierra Leone, stands at the forefront of fostering innovation and entrepreneurship within its academic framework. This paper explores how Njala University can enhance its role in empowering students through targeted skills development, trade education, and entrepreneurial…

In an era of accountability, it is vital that schools can define their success in ways that transcend a single high-stakes testing day at the end of the school year. While student growth and proficiency are important educational measures, also focusing on health and wellness, stewardship of resources, and sustainability education, offers a unique…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have long embraced a path towards sustainability and engaged in supporting sustainable development. The adoption of the sustainability development goals has forced HEIs to assess how they engage with these goals and how they address societal challenges head on. However, the emergence of sustainability rankings…

There is a broad consensus that universities have the potential to act as drivers of education for sustainable development (ESD) and constitute fundamental vehicles to explore, test, develop and communicate conditions for necessary socio-ecological transformations. This goes hand in hand with stronger acknowledgment of the societal role of…

Purpose: This paper aims to outline the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to universities and how they may react. Design/methodology/approach: A description of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to higher education institutions is presented at different levels. Findings: Even though the COVID-19 pandemic affects higher education institutions in…

If we are to attain a sustainable future, humanity will need to make drastic changes towards a life based on sustainability in all areas, especially in the economic sector, including food production. The task of educating for sustainability needs to include food producers (farmers and livestock breeders). This article describes an educational…

Many students have expressed that they feel highly distressed by the state of the world they are inheriting. Extreme weather and wildfires around the globe, and increasingly sobering assessments about projected futures by researchers, activists, and global leaders have led to a growing consensus that the world is at a turning point when it comes…

This paper critically interrogates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in relation to higher education in low-income countries. While the SDG Goal 4, Target 4.3, calls for ensuring 'equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university' around the world by 2030, the…

Higher education transformation in the Czech Republic has been aimed at increasing the competitiveness of Czech higher education institutions within the European context, as well as strengthening their role as the main sources of innovation for sustainable development in its economic and social dimensions. This transformation has undergone a…

At "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi, a novel concept has been implemented by creating the University Regional Research Consortium for Environmental Monitoring and Protection, to improve environmental monitoring and education applicability. The Eco-Consortium has implemented several projects which involved teachers, students, and…

In alignment with the theme of the conference "Towards the Next Epoch of Education," this paper brings attention to the need to strengthen focus on sustainable development in academic activities. As evident in scholarly literature, universities worldwide began to embrace Sustainable Development Goals initiated by the United Nations 2030…

Purpose: Higher education and its leadership are not yet using their potential impact for a sustainable future. This paper aims to focus on UN developments and the long history of university involvement in sustainability might create more interest and understanding that sustainably oriented universities are actually possible and a much stronger…

As global engineering education projects and programs are initiated, too often social outcomes and long-term impacts are assumed to be positive. This is particularly true for sustainable development projects, which often have an inherent assumption of positive transformation through engineering solutions. We argue that a focus on technical…

In this article we offer a discussion around our academic-practitioner involvements with one another and with a targeted community, in relation to a particular project. In the title of the article, we have hyphenated the term "academic-practitioner" to render fuzzy the distinction between "academic" roles (associated with…

Ecologies of openness--inclusion, intersections, and interstices--raises questions about the concepts of open, openness, opened, and opening, throughout educational contexts. The rise of openness and open pedagogy has impacts on educational paradigm shifts and university reforms in open and flexible learning. The focus of this article is to…