The Curriculum Working Group comprises academic colleagues from across London South Bank University’s seven schools.
In the 2016/17 academic year, LSBU initiated a multi-disciplinary course evaluation process whereby a detailed review was made to research the current provision of sustainability content within LSBU’s undergraduate and postgraduate courses delivered in the 2016/17 of teaching. Course content was reviewed from a three-way perspective - economy, society and biosphere/environment – in line with the three “pillars” of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Officially known as ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’, the UN SDG’s set out the road map (2015- 2030) that universities including LSBU can navigate towards to meet the seventeen aspirational ‘Global Goals’ (supported by 169 targets).
LSBU’s preliminary assessment included all 241 courses on offer during the 2016/17 academic year - 140 undergraduate and 101 postgraduate courses – the summary findings are as follows:
- 130 of LSBU’s undergraduate courses contain some references to sustainability (out of 140) equating to 92% of courses
- 88 of LSBU’s postgraduate courses contain some references to sustainability (out of 101) equating to 87% of courses
- In summary, 218 courses (out of 241) offered at LSBU in 2016/17 contain some references to sustainability equating to 91% of courses
The results from the preliminary assessment look very promising. However, follow-up activity is now required to verify the level of sustainability content within our courses, e.g. whether “high, medium or low”, as well as to make recommendations for further embedding of sustainability thinking to the courses, where practical.
This will be a priority action for 2017/18 academic year as a means to validate the on-going integration of further sustainable development content into the LSBU curriculum.
This most recent work builds on past work Gail Langley completed in 2015 at LSBU to identify Education for Sustainable Development activity across teaching and learning. Prior to that, Dr Deborah Andrews also undertook a comprehensive review of the status quo of ESD within the curriculum, so LSBU is able to demonstrate continuous improvement in this field.