TITLE:
Systems Structure of Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education Institution
AUTHORS:
Siti Nur Diyana Mahmud
KEYWORDS:
Systems thinking, Education for Sustainable Development, Higher Education
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.8 No.9,
July
27,
2017
ABSTRACT: To understand the enactment of Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD) in higher education institution (HEI) and why very unequal ESD activity
that mostly focused on campus greening rather than on pedagogic reform
in HEI requires more than simply an examination of the ESD curriculum and
pedagogy. To grasp why and how ESD is implemented in a HEI, the contexts
in which it was created and implemented should be considered. Systems
structures that include the context of the phenomena can show how the interaction
between various factors gives rise to the outcomes that can be observed
at the event level which is the enactment of ESD at the HEI. This paper
presents a finding of the case study concerning systems structure of ESD
conducted at one Malaysia university. This study is explanatory and may give
insight to understand ESD enactment in HEI especially in Asian and developing
country context. The findings from this study demonstrate that the
agents’/ lecturer’s individual systems and the organisational/university system
are co-evolving with their environment. The changes in the environment,
such as the accelerating sustainability crisis and global influence, are perceived
by the lecturers as stimulating ESD enactment in the university. The university’s
response to the sustainability agenda involves temporality and selection.
This explained the university’s delayed response to the sustainability agenda,
until sustainability agenda gained attention globally after the Brundtland Report
in 1987.Despite the forces to adapt to environmental changes, within a
system there is resistance to change. In this study, it included: the lecturers’
perceived lack of sustainability awareness; sustainability acceptance influenced
by disciplines; limited financial support from the university; a compartmentalised
education system; bureaucratic tensions; and lacking of teaching skills
among ESD educators.