Finding Space for Education for Sustainable Development in the Enterprise Economy

Abstract

The promotion of education for sustainable development (ESD) is likely to be constrained by its compatibility with other missions and objectives of higher education institutions (HEIs). Finding space for ESD in the Enterprise Economy invites consideration of opportunities for increasing the visibility and audibility of environmental messages in HE sectors primarily committed to equipping national economies with skilled graduates. A survey of undergraduates registered for a physical geography module at the National University of Singapore was undertaken for three successive cohorts. Students fundamentally associate sustainability with resource-based definitions and usually construct environmental issues in terms of access to and utilization of the resource base. A limited articulation of environmental problems in neighbouring countries suggests that a geographical perspective (emphasizing space and scale) could be usefully enhanced. However, the role of the geography discipline in best serving ESD is ambiguous given the need to infuse ideas through traditional disciplinary boundaries. Reflections on environmental awareness and attitudes among students in Singapore concur with UNESCO recognition that models for ESD must be locally defined in culturally appropriate ways.

Keywords:

• Education for sustainable development
• Singapore
• environmental attitudes
• knowledge-based economy
• knowledge-enterprise

Notes

¹ Ken Gregory's book The Changing Nature of Physical Geography (2000) is an updated edition of his 1985 The Nature of Physical Geography, originally conceived as the physical geography companion to Ron Johnston's highly popular Geography and Geographers (1983). The module's moniker adopted the later version but a bureaucratic decree limiting module titles to 40 characters resulted in ‘changing’ being dropped from the title—despite the implied stagnation of physical geography. Gregory's viewpoint on physical geography is fundamentally British and institutionally focused within the geography discipline, but there are plenty of critics who envisage a path for physical geography that moves towards earth system science (and by implication away from a traditional focus on human–environment relations). Such a trajectory has some implications for how the physical geography sub-discipline would present ideas about environmental issues and sustainable development and this is the focus that the postgraduate students are grappling with as they design the sustainability questionnaire.

² The 10 descriptors are: (a) long-lasting resource; (b) cannot be destroyed; (c) cannot be used; (d) renewable resources; (e) reserve resource for the future; (f) balanced use of resources; (g) fairness to all; (h) prevention of natural disasters; (i) personal consumption patterns; (j) nature conservation.

³ The author has recently acted as a mentor for secondary school students conducting projects on the awareness of environmental issues among teenagers. Despite some progress in promoting environmental clubs within schools it appears that interest in and awareness of environmental issues is barely greater than the surveys conducted in the 1990s. Two-thirds of school students surveyed did not know what ‘sustainable development’ was though the majority were aware of the Singapore Green Plan and the Clean and Green Week initiatives.