Curriculum

Future focussed curriculum

At Western Sydney University, our students are at the centre of everything we do. As graduates, our students will be ready to embrace the world. Every student will be empowered to excel in a rapidly changing world as global citizens, professionals and leaders.

At Western, we acknowledge there are three areas of distinction regarding sustainability education and its application:

Education for Sustainability

Education for Sustainability (or Education for Sustainable Development as it is know globally) is the pedagogical approach that encompasses transformative learning, values and worldviews, systems and complexity thinking, envisioning a better future, and becoming change-makers (Bedi & Germein, 2016). Learning for EfS is transdisciplinary, collaborative, participatory and action orientated. Pedagogies that create sustainability capabilities needs to be included explicitly as part of the curriculum to develop sustainability literate graduates.

Education about the SDGs

Education about sustainability or the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is content-related. This type of content engagement is ‘learning about sustainability’. It allows for our students to recognise the 17 SDGs (or at least ones specifically relate to their discipline) and to learn about and understand their larger global framework and purpose as well as the complexity of what this entails at a global and national level.

Education that contributes to the SDGs

These are programs and specific learning activities that contribute to the intent of the SDGs, or a singular SDG. These allow students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, usually in their discipline.

Our curriculum work is aligned to SDG 4.7: By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.