Addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has become of paramount importance for higher education institutions; however, a lack of a transparent, transferrable approach to identifying and quantifying the extent of SDG contributions hinders the ability to benchmark against past performance or other institutions. In this study, a…

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain, have significantly progressed in higher education reform programmes. However, challenges remain, such as a lack of uniformity in assessment, different norms for degree recognition, a shortage of regionally relevant…

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…

Various studies show that sustainability and education are closely interdependent. Design and implementation of the right performance assessment for students' skills acquisition and achievements is, therefore, critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This article presents an in-depth analysis of the Qatar education system…

The qualities of a teacher are the essential factors that influence learners' academic performance. Most of these qualities are acquired through retraining programmes. As a result of this, many in-service training programme have been on-going. This study was undertaken to ascertain the impact of SDGs retraining workshop on pedagogical competencies…

Purpose: This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by this ranking, to determine if its methodology reflects the degree of sustainability of universities, and whether their results are accurate enough to be used as a…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review and provide propositions about survey assessment tools of the key sustainability competencies (KSCs) of education for sustainability. UNESCO points out how education plays an important role in transforming societies towards a sustainable future and achieving the United Nations' sustainable…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to posit that a key sustainability tool can help provide a needed guide for the many forms of new curricula for academic, public and professional learning communities. The authors demonstrate that key sustainability competency (KSC) research can highlight and provide an array of learning outcomes that can be…

This article shares and extends research-based developments at the University of Otago, New Zealand, that seek to explore how students' worldviews change as they experience higher education with us. We emphasise that sustainability attributes may be described in terms of knowledge, skills and competencies but that these are underpinned by…

COL's mission is to help governments, institutions and organisations expand the scale, efficiency and quality of learning by using appropriate open, distance and technology-based approaches. In 2021-2027, COL will: i) build on its expertise in ODL, OER and TEL to play a more influential role in national policy development and implementation; ii)…

In 2015, 193 countries committed to achieving the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a shared vision of humanity that provides the missing piece of the globalisation puzzle. The extent to which that vision becomes a reality will depend on today's classrooms; and it is educators who hold the key to ensuring that the SDGs become a real…

There has been a major shift in educational learning goals--as seen most recently by Goal 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals--focused on global citizenship education and education for sustainable development. The shift concerns recognition of the need for education systems to equip learners with competencies such as problem solving,…

This article examines the curriculum reform of basic education in China from 2001 to 2008. We first discuss postmodern features of the social background in which the curriculum reform movement takes place: (1) the political ideal of innovation, open-endedness, and harmony; (2) the economic ideal of ecological, stable, and sustainable development;…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the recent history of climate action planning at the University of New Hampshire (UNH), a public university with a long history of sustainability action and commitment. Items discussed include a partnership with Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP) to produce a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory tool that…

Discusses one way to explore the concept of sustainable development with students by examining the loss of biodiversity. Presents information on the root causes of biodiversity loss and the links to an understanding of sustainable development. Contains a 20-question true-false biodiversity quiz with answer key. (LZ)