Sustainable Education and Sustainability in Education: Policy and Implementation Direction in the Era of SDGs

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability in education and sustainable education are two different concepts, but the distinction between them is not often acknowledged. A misleading distinction is also occasionally made to define sustainable education, which may be applicable for sustainability in education. Sustainability in education refers either to the activities that an educational institute undertakes in order to ensure environmental sustainability or to a study program that includes those agendas—both are capable of protecting against environmental crisis. On the other hand, sustainable education refers to those actions which an institution may initiate to deliver a substantial study program. These actions may include upgrading the program and an institutional developmental schema. In addition to these, sustainable education also refers to the mechanism that is capable of ensuring “financial sustainability” for an educational institution and for the programs offered. Therefore, sustainable education lies beyond the remit of quality control, as it also targets the goal and philosophy of education by upholding “financial sustainability”.

The discourse in the areas of sustainability in education and sustainable education started during MDGs (Millilumen Development Goal) era. However, the discourse has been receiving great interest from the global audience in the era of SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and is moving towards too many directions to deal with. Sustainability in education has become a popular and relevant topic in order to respond to the SDGs; especially to deal with the targets of 7, 11, and 13. On the other hand, the targets (4, 8, 9, 10 and 11) of SDGs have provided new milestones that the education sector needs to rethink. These milestones have forced researchers to think beyond the issue of “education quality”. Hence, a new topic, namely sustainable education, has been emerged.

Having said that, both topics (sustainability in education and sustainable education) demand a high level of policy discourse and a discussion on policy practice that are relevant to deal with the political, economic and social challenges since these challenges hinder the decent functioning of these two concepts. Hence, this SI aims to bring insights that support the concepts of sustainable education and sustainability in education by being more innovative and pragmatic in regard to education policy and its practice. This SI welcomes submissions that are linked with either one or both of the topics (sustainability in education and sustainable education). Without rigidly limiting authors to the scopes listed below, the SI collection should mainly focus on:

• Concept of sustainable education and sustainability in education;
• Sustainability of education institute and its programs;
• Concept of sustainable access, enrolment and preference in education;
• Linkage between SDGs and educational development;
• Sustainable education and its role in economic and social developments;
• Financial sustainability model in education;
• Global phenomena in education vs. local reality in sustainable education or in “sustainability in education”;
• Policy and legislative framework for sustainable education, innovation, science and culture;
• Policy and practice challenges either in sustainable education or in sustainability in education.

While the SI welcomes papers from any field, such as science, social sciences and the arts, for instance, papers should include elements of education policy frameworks that support the addressal of either sustainable education or sustainability in education.

Prof. Dr. Gazi Mahabubul Alam
Guest Editor

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