The employment elephant in the lecture room

Yesterday, along with everyone on the EAUC e-list, I received a summary of a UNESCO commissioned report that "presents a critical review of sustainable development in Higher Education, mapping change over the period, identifying key trends and outcomes".  As well as showcasing best practices and emerging opportunities from around the globe, the review "points to areas that are weakly developed and require further investment of time and resources.  Recommendations are made for post-2014 ESD work and to inform the Global Action Programme on ESD".

There are 5 key messages:

1. The engagement of higher education in the construction of a global vision and pathway for sustainable development is critical.  The last ten years have witnessed higher education stepping up its efforts in this area.  The period has seen: the catalytic impact of interagency approaches and government funding significant investment in lowering the carbon footprint of universities and colleges, and large-scale efforts to introduce sustainability into the curriculum.  The sector has witnessed glimpses of good practice in the reorientation of learning and teaching processes, curriculum design and quality systems towards sustainable development.  Evidence suggests that universities and colleges have also understood the value of outreach activities in gaining trust amongst stakeholders and affirming higher education’s role in social change for sustainability.

2. Progress in areas such as student leadership, adoption of governance structures and whole-of-institutional approaches has taken at a much slower pace.  Nevertheless, the study suggests the sector has gained a deep understanding of the complexity underpinning the higher education transition towards sustainable development over the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) years.

3. It has proven difficult to establish the distinct contribution of the DESD to changes outlined above.  What is evident is that DESD has been successful in raising the profile of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and creating platforms and partnerships for international collaboration across higher education.  It has given a mandate to key stakeholders committed to this agenda and helped them to mainstream its ideas, reaching beyond their immediate circles of influence.  The DESD has also served to raise overall awareness of good practice projects in some countries and provoked international debate about the role of higher education in change for a sustainable future.

4. The study concludes that a global rebooting of higher education towards sustainable development is yet to take place.  This will require more than the alignment or scaling up of existing good practice.  Systemic approaches to curriculum change at an institutional level as well as across the sector are needed.  The evidence suggests that academic leadership is key to realizing this ambition.

5. The Global Action Programme on ESD should prioritize efforts and professional development opportunities for programme leaders, lecturers and tutors as well as senior managers and sector leaders who have responsibility for curriculum quality and academic development.  Building capability and academic networks in this area may well prove catalytic in the quest to reorient higher education towards sustainable development 

All very interesting, and I'm looking forward to reading the full report in due course.

But here's a curious thing.  There is hardly any reference in all this, or in the executive summary that accompanies it, to graduates, employment, employers, business, the economy, careers, jobs, work, the workplace, skills, competences, and the like.

On the real ground in universities, however, such issues loom very large, particularly amongst students, most of whom have a strong desire to leave HE with decent qualifications that others value so that they can be socially useful and personally successful.  Thus the link between higher education and the workplace is strong, without ever being directly vocational, and such issues loom particularly large in relation to sustainability, as employer groups and professional bodies can exert strong pull factors on institutions through accreditation and other processes to help ensure that sustainability issues are suitably located within degrees.  The engineering profession is probably the most prominent, and long-standing, case in question, but it is now far from the only one.

How curious, then, that this is deemed of so little relevance to UNESCO – and how to explain it.  Well, one of the problems of having [i] a focus on introducing ESD, as opposed, say, to [ii] re-focusing degree studies to address sustainability, is that attention is mostly inward, on the student experience, rather than being outward as well, on where the degree will be applied, which is something universities forget at their peril.  Those committed to establishing ESD tend to think that there is actually little difference between [i] & [ii], but most of those responsible for teaching and facilitating learning know better.