The integration of competences for sustainable development in higher education: an analysis of bachelor programs in management

Abstract

Over the past years, many universities have integrated sustainability into their education, research, outreach, and operations. Within education, competences regarding sustainable development (SD) have been defined, courses on sustainability have been developed, and manuals and methods for teaching SD have been developed and integrated in curricula. The integration of competences for SD in higher education programs can be seen as an important step in achieving sustainability in higher education. Although these competences are defined and described in different models and settings, little information is available on the actual status of the integration of competences for SD in different study programs. In order to find out how and to what extent these competences are already present, the existing competence schemes of study programs within two Belgian universities were analyzed in the fields of business management, office management, and applied information technology. Results of the analysis show that competences for SD related to responsibility and emotional intelligence are widely integrated, while competences for SD dealing with system orientation, future orientation, personal commitment, and action taking are virtually absent. The analysis also shows that many competences for SD could be discovered within the selected study programs, though in an implicit and fragmented way, thus not covering all necessary fields of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. This calls for an adjustment of the study programs to clearly and explicitly integrate competences for SD, especially those related to system orientation, future orientation, personal involvement, and action taking.