Abstract
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a key instrument in transforming societies towards sustainable development, which can play a crucial role in the achievement of Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the current status and problems of implementation of Education for Sustainable Development by examining the sustainability-related knowledge content included in the higher education curriculum, with a special focus on the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). We used both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis methods, including keyword analysis of selected MOOCs’ syllabuses, to capture the nature of the studied phenomenon and enable assessment of the degree to which the sustainable development goals are integrated into the learning content. We found that most of 17 SDGs are reflected in the MOOCs learning content, but in case of some learning topics, such as “Zero hunger” and “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”, a bigger effort should be made to include them more broadly in the curricula. The research results can support educators’ efforts in identifying and incorporating challenging issues within the processes of curriculum development, indicating the need for a holistic and interdisciplinary approach, in which sustainability should be mainstreamed into all aspects of education.
Highlights
Sustainable development is a priority policy issue for governments and one of the greatest challenges for societies
It includes a strong commitment to ensuring inclusion, equity and gender equality. It focuses on effective and relevant learning leading to the acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills and competencies, which are needed for promoting sustainable development [17]
Total number of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provided by FutureLearn is almost seven times lower compared to Coursera, but courses classified as economics and finance courses have a similar share in total number of courses
Summary
Sustainable development is a priority policy issue for governments and one of the greatest challenges for societies. Education is explicitly formulated as a stand-alone goal, one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the agenda. The transition to sustainability should be supported by Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at different levels of education, from preschool to tertiary education until lifelong learning. New opportunities in this regard are created by the growing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which have captured a lot of public attention, offering many new teaching and learning solutions
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