Ms Colette Murphy:

There are individual courses. To be fair, many universities have taken initiatives in rolling them out. DCU, Trinity College and other universities have been rolling them out, which is very good to see. The goal of education for sustainable development is that every person should leave third level education with an understanding of sustainable development. We know that once people enter the workforce it is a buzzword. It is something that is very important for people to understand, whether they become politicians, engineers or psychologists. It is relevant to every discipline and it should be integrated into the curriculum.

To be fair, universities have been making headway on it but there is a very slow roll-out and it is only reaching a certain cohort of students. Normally it is rolled out in the courses where it is most obvious. For social science it is heavily based on communication around climate science. It is relevant to science courses and teacher education. It is relevant to absolutely everybody and it need to be embedded in the curriculum. This year, a movement has started among lecturers and students to try to have modules in order that all undergraduate students will do a specific module on sustainable development. We are in favour of this, as well as integrating it throughout the curriculum in various courses.