ALTERNATIVES TO INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY INTO HIGHER EDUCATION CURRICULA

Abstract

The world community is constantly facing a number of economic, social and environmental challenges that are intensifying due to climate change and globalization. Alarming statistics on climate change, depleting natural resources, social exclusion and poverty clearly show that the current model of societal development requires fundamental change, and that higher education is expected to play an important role in many countries in creating a more sustainable future and empowering society, the knowledge, skills, and values ​​of graduates to enable the whole of society to move towards a more sustainable way of life. Still, the main challenge for higher education is to realize the most effective alternatives for integrating sustainability into higher education curricula.

This article analyses the need and importance of integrating sustainability into higher education curricula and presents alternatives to integrating sustainability into board and business / economics studies. The matrix (alternatives) of possibilities for integrating sustainability into business and management / economics study programs presented in the article are the main ways of integrating sustainability into study programs, but it is not necessary to limit them. Teaching methods that include guest lecturers, practitioners, or student-client group projects that help integrate sustainability into management and business / economics studies can be applied to all alternatives. This matrix of choices can be applied in various ways, its flexibility allows you to choose one or more alternatives, to combine them with each other. It can be applied in all three areas of sustainability (economy, society, environment), not just in the environment. It also allows to determine the importance of the integration of sustainability in higher education, allows to develop discussions on the topic of the need for sustainability, to determine its significance.