Abstract :
The first part of this paper argues that higher
education (HE) institutions have an obligation to
nurture sustainable development awareness.
This is viewed against the UK Government’s
recommendation and guidance on sustainable
development education. In particular, this focuses
on the Government’s sustainable development
education specification for design education and
the challenge this poses to UK tertiary design
education. The concluding part of this paper
discusses the emergence of new design
dialogues, which are grappling with the task of
synthesising the precepts of sustainable development
with the ‘act of designing’. This has led
to discourse on the need for defining viable
strategies that invent new forms of design
education and practice and for the provision of
new professional choices to students. This paper
takes into account the evolution of language in
this educational subject area, from ‘environmental
education’, to ‘environment and development
education’, to ‘education or learning for sustainability’.
The desired outcome of learning for
sustainability is often expressed as ‘responsible
global citizenship’. At the moment some of these
terms are interchangeable. For my purposes, the
term ‘sustainable development education’ will be
used though out, unless for historical accuracy
or specific reasons.
