Sustainable Education and Sustainability in Education: Policy and Implementation Direction in the Era of SDGs

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability in education and sustainable education are two different concepts, but the distinction between them is not often acknowledged. A misleading distinction is also occasionally made to define sustainable education, which may be applicable for sustainability in education. Sustainability in education refers either to the activities that an educational institute undertakes in order to ensure environmental sustainability or to a study program that includes those agendas—both are capable of protecting against environmental crisis. On the other hand, sustainable education refers to those actions which an institution may initiate to deliver a substantial study program. These actions may include upgrading the program and an institutional developmental schema. In addition to these, sustainable education also refers to the mechanism that is capable of ensuring “financial sustainability” for an educational institution and for the programs offered. Therefore, sustainable education lies beyond the remit of quality control, as it also targets the goal and philosophy of education by upholding “financial sustainability”.

The discourse in the areas of sustainability in education and sustainable education started during MDGs (Millilumen Development Goal) era. However, the discourse has been receiving great interest from the global audience in the era of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and is moving towards too many directions to deal with. Sustainability in education has become a popular and relevant topic in order to respond to the SDGs; especially to deal with the targets of 7, 11, and 13. On the other hand, the targets (4, 8, 9, 10 and 11) of SDGs have provided new milestones that the education sector needs to rethink. These milestones have forced researchers to think beyond the issue of “education quality”. Hence, a new topic, namely sustainable education, has been emerged.

Having said that, both topics (sustainability in education and sustainable education) demand a high level of policy discourse and a discussion on policy practice that are relevant to deal with the political, economic and social challenges since these challenges hinder the decent functioning of these two concepts. Hence, this SI aims to bring insights that support the concepts of sustainable education and sustainability in education by being more innovative and pragmatic in regard to education policy and its practice. This SI welcomes submissions that are linked with either one or both of the topics (sustainability in education and sustainable education). Without rigidly limiting authors to the scopes listed below, the SI collection should mainly focus on:

• Concept of sustainable education and sustainability in education;
• Sustainability of education institute and its programs;
• Concept of sustainable access, enrolment and preference in education;
• Linkage between SDGs and educational development;
• Sustainable education and its role in economic and social developments;
• Financial sustainability model in education;
• Global phenomena in education vs. local reality in sustainable education or in “sustainability in education”;
• Policy and legislative framework for sustainable education, innovation, science and culture;
• Policy and practice challenges either in sustainable education or in sustainability in education.

While the SI welcomes papers from any field, such as science, social sciences and the arts, for instance, papers should include elements of education policy frameworks that support the addressal of either sustainable education or sustainability in education.

Prof. Dr. Gazi Mahabubul Alam
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• education policy
• sustainable education
• education and sustainable development
• sustainability in education
• international comparative education and development
• education in the 21st century
• SDGs
• commodification in education

Title: Leadership in Research University in the Era of University Ranking League Competition — an Impact on Sustainable Higher Education
Authors: Soaib Asimiran
Affiliation: Department of Foundation of Education, Faculty of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Persiaran Masjid, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia.
Abstract: University contributes for research that subsequently supports the development of the world and society. To determine the contribution of a university, research productivity and its impact on development have become the core agenda. However, university ranking has become an important issue to determine the status of a university. The position of a university in the global ranking league table which often depends on number game, has become a topical issue. Leaders of the university, especially research counterparts, often love to chase the number game to hold a position in the ranking league table. Whether such chases develop a substantial university system or aggravate the sustainability crisis in higher education —a question deserves research attention; is a subject of this current study. This study was conducted using a qualitative method. Findings suggest that macro level leaders provided some targets to their micro counterparts to be achieved. These targets are determined by numbers and are also evaluated by number — a widely practiced tool for monitoring and development. The academics of the universities used to run by their job ethics, dignity and passion which positively impacted the university’s contribution; thereby its ranking. However, the current model offers both positive and negative outcomes and a new mechanism on leadership is advocated to ensure more positive outcomes by addressing negative counterparts.

Title: Reflections on the UNESCO competencies used in Education for Sustainable Development: are they fit for purpose?
Authors: Andy Lane
Affiliation: The Open University
Abstract: Sustainable Development (SD) has been a key feature of international development discourse and actions for several decades and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been a perennial fixture in that discourse, if not actions. This has been seen most prominently in the work of the United Nations and most recently in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As well as targets and indicators for ESD within the SDGs, UNESCO has also devised and promoted a set of eight key competencies that everyone should have as part of ESD and to fully contribute to sustainability. These competencies are grouped into cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural domains. These key competencies are claimed to be transversal, multifunctional and context-independent and cannot be taught, but have to be developed by the learners themselves. Thus, their presentation as an ideal set of competencies, albeit in a domain-based framework, seemingly provides little consideration of the underpinning history, philosophy and practices associated with each competence, the possible relationships between them and how the competencies may be developed in practice. This paper reviews how these competencies feature in the research literature, examines ways in which they might be combined, and identifies hidden or missing competencies. It then reflects on how education can, in practice, teach and has taught people one of them, systems thinking, effectively and often specifically for SD.

Title: The ICT-enabled Education for Sustainability Teachers' Resilience Scale: Factorial Structure, Reliability and Validation
Authors: Vassilios Makrakis
Affiliation: Frederick Universisity School of Education and Social Sciences
Abstract: An important trend in education in recent years is the increasing recognition of the need to shift from teaching of concepts and facts to incorporate authentic practices and everyday life of students in learning and instruction. Integrating the text and context what has been described as contextualization is a critical point in responding to the current sustainability crises such as climate change. However, despite increasing efforts to contextualize, for example, ICTs with Education for Sustainability, text and context has been often conceptualized as a static input variable framed by teachers, textbooks and instructional designers, as opposed to the quest of what we have framed as transformational ICTeEfS (ICT-enabled Education for Sustainability). In this paper, we draw from our capacity building interventions and learning design-based research on ICTeEfS and focus on the factorial structure, reliability and validity of a teachers’ resilience scale for the active contextualization of students' learning. The scale is developed through a sample of 1815 teachers in seven Universities in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. This scale can be used to reframe text and context enabled by ICTs and contextualized with SDGs as a continuous and interactive learning activity that is facilitated by learner agency in authentic learning environments.

Title: Assessing the Impact of a College Service-Learning Class Focused on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Authors: Anna L. Krift; Antonella Regueiro Fernandez; Patrick Cooper; Alanna L. Lecher
Affiliation: Lynn University
Abstract: Liberal arts education in the United States seeks not only to prepare students for a specific career, but also acts to develop well-rounded citizens. At Lynn University as part of the core liberal arts curriculum all students must complete a service-learning course, Citizenship Project. A core component of the course is a student-designed service-learning project executed by the students in January of each year. In 2019 Citizenship Project was altered to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in that each project would seek to contribute to one of the goals. The purpose of this study is to assess which UN SDGs the service-learning projects addressed and summarize how the projects contributed to those UN SDGs.

Title: A framework for a sustainable archaeology field school in South Florida
Authors: Alanna L. Lecher; Katharine Napora; Sara Ayers Rigsby; Malachi Fenn; Peter De Witt; John Sullivan
Affiliation: Lynn University
Abstract: Entry into the profession of archaeology often requires the completion of an archaeological field school, which teaches proper field and artifact curation methodology. Archaeology as a discipline has been making strides towards integrating cross-disciplinary methods to increase the depth and breadth of the subject and fostering a culture of respect and inclusivity. These efforts have been mirrored in the approaches of some archaeological fields schools, but not necessarily in a systematic fashion. This paper presents a cohesive framework for an archaeological field school that integrates cross-disciplinary training and inclusivity by model of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Both how the framework could be implemented across a variety of archaeology field schools and how it was implemented in the Florida Public Archaeology Network field school are discussed.