506
H. Rosli et al.
2.3 Sustainable Cities and Communities Programme
All aspects of university life including teaching, learning, research, and societal integration are key issues in implementing sustainability studies in the higher education
institutions (Du et al. 2013).
Well-educated students with sustainable development is the best outcome from
ESD. All of these need the existence of educational offer as well as students; and
the core actors in ESD are those students (Holgaard et al. 2016). Nevertheless, to
integrate ESD as a transdisciplinary field is quite challenging. Haase (2014, as cited
in Holgaard et al. 2016), a Danish nationwide investigation had been conducted to
newly enrolled engineering students. The study found that it is challenging to put the
sustainability approaches on the agenda among mathematics and science students,
as their intrinsic motivation was not closely aligned to other motives in studying
engineering.
Leaders in university needs to play their important role in “walking the talk,” so that
comprehensive strategies of sustainable development, involving environmental management, corporate social responsibility and healthy economy will be implemented
(Holgaard et al. 2016). These strategies should include supporting ESD activities,
sustainable campus activities as well as ESD development projects and research.
Besides, leaders in universities need to ensure that their teaching staff or educators
have been sufficiently trained and are ready for the challenges the issue of integration
ESD into their academic programmes. This means that they need to be well-prepared
to be the gatekeepers for the realisation of ESD and delivering sustainability in an
interdisciplinary mode, even though it is some kind of complex and integrative nature
of ESD (Holgaard et al. 2016). Norden (2014) in her study found that overall educators who worked in the project with deep-level processing for learning ESD in an
integrated manner in the transdisciplinary framework experience tensions between
their resources and capabilities, and the challenges they faced in the project. They
need to identify two main approaches in teaching sustainability in transdisciplinary
mode. First, they have to struggle with the issue of transdisciplinarity. Second, they
need to show ownership and capability to reconceptualise the project as a whole
(Norden 2014).
2.4 Examples of Sustainable Development Programmes
In Norway, the University of Bergen offers an undergraduate course sustainable
development core course, namely, Bachelor of Sustainability, Cities and Communities. This programme was specially designed to provide students with a deep
understanding of human geography and the human geographical perspectives on
the world using theoretical and methodological insights based on theories and cases
from human geographical research (University of Bergen 2015). This sustainability
course was offered to emphasise on the urban climate change as well as the energy
H. Rosli et al.
2.3 Sustainable Cities and Communities Programme
All aspects of university life including teaching, learning, research, and societal integration are key issues in implementing sustainability studies in the higher education
institutions (Du et al. 2013).
Well-educated students with sustainable development is the best outcome from
ESD. All of these need the existence of educational offer as well as students; and
the core actors in ESD are those students (Holgaard et al. 2016). Nevertheless, to
integrate ESD as a transdisciplinary field is quite challenging. Haase (2014, as cited
in Holgaard et al. 2016), a Danish nationwide investigation had been conducted to
newly enrolled engineering students. The study found that it is challenging to put the
sustainability approaches on the agenda among mathematics and science students,
as their intrinsic motivation was not closely aligned to other motives in studying
engineering.
Leaders in university needs to play their important role in “walking the talk,” so that
comprehensive strategies of sustainable development, involving environmental management, corporate social responsibility and healthy economy will be implemented
(Holgaard et al. 2016). These strategies should include supporting ESD activities,
sustainable campus activities as well as ESD development projects and research.
Besides, leaders in universities need to ensure that their teaching staff or educators
have been sufficiently trained and are ready for the challenges the issue of integration
ESD into their academic programmes. This means that they need to be well-prepared
to be the gatekeepers for the realisation of ESD and delivering sustainability in an
interdisciplinary mode, even though it is some kind of complex and integrative nature
of ESD (Holgaard et al. 2016). Norden (2014) in her study found that overall educators who worked in the project with deep-level processing for learning ESD in an
integrated manner in the transdisciplinary framework experience tensions between
their resources and capabilities, and the challenges they faced in the project. They
need to identify two main approaches in teaching sustainability in transdisciplinary
mode. First, they have to struggle with the issue of transdisciplinarity. Second, they
need to show ownership and capability to reconceptualise the project as a whole
(Norden 2014).
2.4 Examples of Sustainable Development Programmes
In Norway, the University of Bergen offers an undergraduate course sustainable
development core course, namely, Bachelor of Sustainability, Cities and Communities. This programme was specially designed to provide students with a deep
understanding of human geography and the human geographical perspectives on
the world using theoretical and methodological insights based on theories and cases
from human geographical research (University of Bergen 2015). This sustainability
course was offered to emphasise on the urban climate change as well as the energy