Students’ Vision on Integrating Sustainable Development at Tallinn University of Technology

Abstract

Tallinn University of Technology (TUT) is one of the largest universities in Estonia with total enrolment of approximately 13,000 students. The university provides three levels of higher education, practically in all engineering fields needed in Estonia. Over the past years, the integration of sustainability aspects into the university curriculum has become increasingly important worldwide, as well as at TUT. Thus, since 2009, the course “Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development” has become compulsory for many students of technical faculties. In this paper, the authors aimed to analyse students’ attitudes and expectations for this course, as well as the level of integration of sustainability aspects into selected educational programs at TUT. Interdisciplinarity is a key factor to obtain viable results in the implementation of sustainable development at universities. Therefore, special attention was given to defining problems and weaknesses of the current situation regarding the integration of sustainability aspects into university educational programs and, based on students’ vision, coming out with some practical ideas for embedding overall sustainable development processes at TUT.