Quality Standards and Sustainability in our Universities

The link between quality and sustainable development is probably best exemplified in the following quote:

“Human relationships based on naked self-interest (e.g., greed, envy or lust for power) maintain inequitable distribution of wealth, generate conflict and lead to scant regard for the future availability of natural resources.”  

An education system which mirrors these values is unlikely to deliver a quality education.  Education should facilitate and promote human relationships characterised by justice, peace and negotiated mutual interests, which lead to greater equity, respect and understanding.  It is these qualities which underpin sustainable development and a quality education. 

The UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) argued that all education which embraces sustainable development must share the characteristics of any high-quality learning experience, but it also emphasised that an additional criterion must be that the process of learning and teaching model the values of sustainable development.  These include:

• Respect for the dignity and human rights of people throughout the world and a commitment to social and economic justice for all.
• Respect for the human rights of future generations and a commitment to intergenerational responsibility.
• Respect and care for the great community of life in all its diversity which involves the protection and restoration of the earth’s eco systems.
• Respect for cultural diversity and a commitment to build locally and globally a culture of tolerance, non-violence, and peace.

Few would disagree with these guiding principles but how these are interpreted and implemented in teaching and learning is more difficult to specify. 

In the early part of 2004/5 I initiated some discussions with the UK Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency, based in Gloucester, to explore this question along with the role they might play in it. The potential outcomes of this conversation progressed slowly – too slowly given the growing impacts of climate change and many more impacts of our unsustainable lifestyles. Nevertheless, there was further progress in 2011/13 when, during my tenure as chair of the Higher Education Academy’s Sustainable Development Advisory group, the QAA began to take a more committed interest in it. And, in 2014, the HEA and QAA launched a pioneering report on the teaching of sustainable development in our universities. Its purpose was:

“to serve as a reference point for use in curriculum design, delivery, and review. Educators are encouraged to use it as a framework, within their own disciplinary context, rather than as a prescription of a curriculum or pedagogic approach.”

As far as I am aware, this pioneering document which was was launched in June 2014 (and given its status as ”guidance“)  received little or no further evaluation of its impact, from the QAA nor the Higher Education Academy or from the Higher Education Funding Council nor any of its successor bodies, especially the higher education regulatory authority – the Office for Students.

Last week, we heard that an updated and enhanced QAA document was ready for consultation from the sector and presumably far beyond?

So, for the past six years the guidance document was out there, and no one  considered asking the question – What impact if any has it made? This was despite the growing evidence from university students from across the UK about the importance they placed on learning about sustainability and the necessity for its inclusion across the university curriculum. And this coupled with massive student climate strikes across the globe involving in one week alone in March 2019 – 1.6 million strikers across 125 countries. All of which makes it seem incredible that this document lacks any sense of the urgent need for deeper and scalable action on sustainability in our universities and moreover under represents the student voice in these matters.