Abstract:

The accomplishment of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development (SD) which consists of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 associated targets will depend largely on the knowledge and skills development of the world population through learning. This therefore makes educational institutions major stakeholders in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of the sustainable goals, especially those that affect teaching and learning, research and community development. In order to realise this aim, there have been calls for higher education institutions (HEIs) to incorporate sustainable practices in their activities and this remain high on the agenda of international organisations and countries. Although international organisations researchers in HEIs continue to find solutions to the growing sustainable development needs and the transformation of HEIs, there are still several bottlenecks in the achievements of these objectives. However, any response by HEIs to structure their institutions to meet this global call will require significant shifts and alignments by way of transformation. This study therefore conceptualises the transformation of HEIs through an integrated system model that incorporate major aspects of sustainable development (SD). The proposed model, which consist of a four-stage SD integrated approach, if implemented will ensure that HEIs adopt a comprehensive SD that will also seek to transform their institutions while meeting global expectations on SD.

In order to address the issues with regard to the integration of sustainability development into the transformation of higher education institutions, three key questions were developed to guide the study:
1) what are the existing challenges with the adoption and implementation of a comprehensive sustainable development system that supports the transformation of HEIs?
2) what is the relationship between the basic system model, sustainable development practices and the transformation of higher education institutions? and
3) how can an integrated system model that incorporates SD serve to transform HEIs and yield the desired results?

In order to provide answers to the questions raised, the integrated system model was designed to highlight four key factors that support the transformation of higher education institutions and the development of sustainable practices. First, it allows for the adoption of sustainable development policies to be formulated and implemented alongside the structures of HEIs. Secondly, it defines the relationship between the input, process, output and outcome factors of HEIs in relation to sustainable development practices. Thirdly, the model allows HEIs to follow a transformation process that is directly linked to the sustainable development goals. The fourth factor is that, it allows HEIs to evaluate their policies and practices by bench-marking them against international best practices.

Keywords:

Sustainable development, transformation, higher education, sustainability, system model.