BENG 4322

ENGINEER AND SOCIETY

ASSIGNMENT 17 SDGs
SUSTAINABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: PERSPECTIVES OF
MALAYSIAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM

LECTURER IR DR NORAZHAR BIN ABU BAKAR

STUDENT IZATUL FARAHIN BINTI M AZMAN

MATRIC NUMBER B 0116 10031

COURSE, SECTION BEKG, SECTION 1

DATE 10/05/2020
1.0 INTRODUCTION

Sustainability portrays the capability of a system to coexist, referring generally for the ability
of the biosphere as well as human civilization to exist in harmony despite the difference in
ideologies and interest. The term itself can be phrased as a socio-ecological process over the
pursuit of the same interest and common ideal. [1]

The 2030 sustainable development agenda lay out several shared indicator focusing in
peace and prosperity for the people, now and future. This agenda outlined 17 indicator at its
heart which are actually a dire measure for all country on deck into a mutual partnership.
Moreover, the act itself shows an acknowledgement over the ending poverty and other
deprivations can only be controlled by acknowledging other factors such as improving health
and education, reduce inequality and prompt economic growth.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

The objective of this article reviewing is to;

i. Identify the problem that were highlighted.

An article that relate closely to the issue of environment and sustainability in Malaysia
were chosen to be reviewed. The article were specifically related to one of the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) that were introduced by the year 2015 to all United Nation
Member States in 2015, which is the quality education. Education for sustainable Development
(ESD) underlining importance to include the key sustainable issues into teaching and learning
which then requires effective pedagogy in order to ensure a participatory method of both
teaching and learning. Hence, motivate and empower the future as to guarantee the
sustainability in their social systems. Malaysia has been long since assimilate the principle of
Agenda 21, a program to forge a global alliance into its national planning process. Over the
time, however, the outcome are not satisfactorily ensure. Hence, the article addressed the
existing vary programs as well its research schemes of public and private higher educational
institutions in Malaysia. Later, it tackled the pedagogical approaches of the programme and its
relation to the key concept of ESD.
4.0 PROBLEM DISCUSSION

As previously mentioned, Malaysia has been long since first implemented the Agenda 21 into
its educations system ( Hassan, 1998; Ngah, Mustaffa, Zakaria, Noordin & Sawal, 2011).
Among the recent development for sustainable development that were initiate within the
context of Agenda 21 are noted as worthy such as high-tech smart villages, smart cities to
greening higher education campuses. Continuing from that, the agenda has been also
implemented into Malaysia’s cities plan and monitoring development such as Malaysian 5-
year plans (Malaysia Plan) which reckon the agenda for various other sectors (Makmor, Ismail,
Hashim & Nasir, 2012).

The academic programs offered by the Malaysia’s HEI were evaluated in order to assess
the capabilities each institution, private or not, to tackle the difference in aspects of
sustainability through their educational programmes. Although it is of importance to observe
the method of the student in learning, it is also as of importance to oversee the effect of these
approaches into the students’ social development and its implementation in their practical life
which seems to be impossible since the role of an institution to cover up to that extent was not
verified. Sustainable development requires an economic growth in line with poverty alleviation
and social welfare (2004), the potential barriers for the HEI to fully grasp the ESD is due to
lack of knowledge and awareness among the teachers and learners, a significant knowledge
gap that can clearly be observed among the HEI’s educational programme.

The variety of educational programmed offered by Malaysia’s HEI proven to have its
own pros and cons. Although it is widely covered within science, social science and
engineering discipline at the graduate and postgraduate level, the student are often failed to
relate those set of knowledge from their set of individual modules programme due to lack of in
depth details in the syllabus. As an example, a student of Ecology and Natural Resources are
unable to relate their mastery with sustainable infrastructural development compared to that of
the students from the related programme. The contradiction of these can be explained by
comparing the academic technique between the mono-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary
institution of education.
5.0 SOLUTION DISCUSSION

Over the past year since 17 SDGs were introduced and various indicator were implemented
into Malaysia’s various sector, a considerable amount of time and money were spent by the
government itself as an initiatives to embrace the sustainability development agendas into
higher educational system in Malaysia despite the invisible barrier that exist. Although,
presently there are no institutes that specifically centred the research for all domain of
sustainability, Malaysia have its own proportion of academic courses that devote in
sustainability studies.

In order to breach the barrier of obtaining a quality education for Malaysia’s future
generation and grasp the understanding of ESD among the higher educational, the staffs and
learners shall be exposed to a better learning materials in order for them to interact better with
the students during learning process. The conventional ways of study by fully utilising textbook
and paper materials are far behind the dates, especially for the students that has been long
exposed with technology. Hence, utilising the use of technology during classes, exposure to a
real life working experience for a visit and other interactive shall be introduced.

Other than that, the exposure from education system might not be enough since the role
of education might not extend to that of one’s practical life. With the understanding that not all
family are able to provide the high technology kit for educational outside of its institution, the
responsibility falls under the community to provide educational sources for the under
developing areas such as community centre that enable technology with internet access, or an
occasional voluntary class by the community itself.
6.0 REFERENCE

[1] Wandemberg, JC (August 2015). Sustainable by Design. Amazon. p. 122. ISBN 978-
1516901784. Retrieved 16 February 2016.

[2] https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cone&menu_id=bEdTaUR1ejcrZUhG
QlFtRVI4TG93UT09

[3] Reza, M. I. H. (2016). Sustainability in higher education: Perspectives of Malaysian higher

[4] Savita, K. S., Muniandy, M., Nur'Ain, Z., & Mehat, M. (2017, July). A mobile based
environmental education for primary schoolchildren in Malaysia. In 2017 International
Conference on Research and Innovation in Information Systems (ICRIIS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
7.0 APPENDICE
Article : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244016665890