78 Ethics in Higher Education: Values-driven Leaders for the Future
Sustainability has been described as the reconciliation of three
imperatives: (i) the ecological imperative, to stay within the biophysical
carrying capacity of our planet; (ii) the economic imperative, to provide
an adequate material standard of living for all; and (iii) the social
imperative, to provide systems of governance that propagate the values
by which we want to live.^23 It is obvious that higher education
institutions have a role to play in all three imperatives. Importantly, the
challenge is about achieving real and meaningful change in both law and
fact. Increasing the number of institutions or attendees does not in itself
guarantee economic and social change if the quality of the education is
lacking.^24 Higher education institutions have the potential to stand at the
forefront of meaningful transformation and social upliftment for the
global population, and the chart the course for the post-2015 period.
However, in order to be transformative, the higher education sector
needs to transform itself.
The SDGs give higher education institutions the springboard to do
so, but it is for the institutions to develop strategic plans for sustainable
development, taking into account their own unique features. Rather than
being seen as a challenge, higher education institutions should embrace
this for the incredible opportunity that it presents.
23
UNESCO Bangkok, “Reinventing higher education: Towards participatory
and sustainable development” (2008), at p 36. 24
Above n 18 at p 51.