Higher Education in a scheme of Social Responsibility towards the change of paradigm

Abstract

Technological development has brought about significant positive and negative global changes, including environmental degradation, human rights, the concentration of wealth, and increased poverty. That as a whole has resulted in the loss of human consciousness towards care and responsibility for the environment and sustainability. In some cases, out of ambition and in others out of necessity. The present study has the objective of showing that in the majors of Higher Technical University and Engineering, the study plans have been gradually incorporating into their plans and programs subjects that promote awareness of Social Responsibility (SR) among the university community, an effort that can be strengthened with other tools such as the NMX-SAST-ISO:26000 Standard, which is a guide to lead cross-cutting strategies and systematize the actions implemented by Higher Education Institutions (IES). In order to carry out this research, we used the longitudinal comparative method. The results of this research are divided into two moments; in the 2009 study plans in which they only incorporated up to 20 percent of topics related to Social Responsibility in the Business and Administration plans of the Technological University Subsystem. In a second moment, the 2017 study plans were analyzed, in which a significant advance is observed since 32 and 48 percent respectively of the study plan is incorporated into the business and administration subject sheets. To complement the research, a survey was carried out with the students in 2018 regarding the level of knowledge and management of concepts related to Social Responsibility, in which 75 percent of the students interviewed have at least a general idea of the subject.