International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education

Higher education and curriculum innovation for sustainable development in India

Kiran Banga Chhokar
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Higher education
Higher education and curriculum and curriculum
innovation for sustainable innovation
development in India
141
Kiran Banga Chhokar
Centre for Environment Education, New Delhi, India Received 19 December 2009
Revised 1 January 2010
Accepted 4 January 2010
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze and profile significant national developments in
higher education for sustainable development in India and to compare different educational
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approaches emerging in connection with education for sustainable development.

Design/methodology/approach – This is an evaluative review of contrasting initiatives to provide
environmental and sustainability education in different institutions, that takes into account philosophy,
policy and practice in Indian higher education. Academic programmes, policy statements and
education projects are analyzed, to highlight important developments, challenges and the prospects for
future progress.
Findings – Several principles of sustainable development are embedded in India’s education policy.
It is perhaps the only country where the highest court has mandated environmental education at all
levels of formal education, which includes a compulsory undergraduate course. However, the
challenges of implementing this requirement effectively are hampered by lack of inter-disciplinary
competence among staff and students, and traditional methods of assessment in HE. India has
examples of successful community-based initiatives but these often have resource implications. Many
efforts to develop learning opportunities in this field have emerged primarily from academic and
student interests and priorities rather than from formal policy initiatives.
Originality/value – This paper provides an evaluative perspective on the diverse and innovative
responses to sustainability emerging in Indian higher education, in curriculum development and to
address issues of practice on campus and in local communities. The opportunity to analyse the
implementation of a national initiative is unusual, particularly in the distinctive context of India, which
has considerable prior engagement with sustainable development at the level of policy and practice.
Keywords Higher education, Sustainable development, Curriculum development,
Educational innovation, India
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
This paper reviews significant initiatives geared to sustainable development in higher
education in India. It explores, the philosophy underlying the establishment of some of
India’s leading universities and analyzes the degree to which various educational
policy pronouncements in the field of environmental and sustainability education have
been implemented. Two initiatives are considered in detail: the mandate by the
Supreme Court of India for an environment course to be taught at all undergraduate International Journal of Sustainability
institutions, and an innovative experiment to integrate sustainability into in Higher Education
Vol. 11 No. 2, 2010
undergraduate programmes in rural development. The paper also describes other pp. 141-152
sustainability developments in various universities in recent years, including efforts to q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1467-6370
engage at the level of curriculum, in campus practice and through student-led projects. DOI 10.1108/14676371011031865
 IJSHE “Sustainable development” requires higher education to think in new and more
11,2 integrated ways about the inter-relationships within and between the natural and
cultural environments. There have been various efforts to redefine the kind of
education that would bring about change for sustainable development (Orr, 1992, 1994;
Sterling, 2001, 2009; Scott and Gough, 2003; Sarabhai, 2005). In line with this thinking,
the United Nations declared 2005-2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable
142 Development (DESD) to push the agenda of transformative education throughout the
world. By its midpoint, the DESD has not had much direct impact on higher education
in India. However, other influences are playing an important role. The recognition of
sustainable development as a legitimate requirement of industry and a pressing issue
for society seems to be driving change, together with the interests of students and
academic faculty. Nonetheless, the concern about inclusive and equitable development
that is embedded in India’s constitution and its development policies provides a
foundation on which to build initiatives for transformative education.
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National context: universities and development

Recognition of the interconnectedness of the natural environment and the human
community, and respect for the environment as the foundation of all life, are rooted in
India’s cultural traditions[1]. Long before the current environmental crises became
apparent, Mahatma Gandhi spoke of the need to conserve the unique life support
system and to use its resources wisely. Recently, his thinking and writings are widely
cited in contemporary Indian sustainable development discourse (Agarwal, 1989;
Narain, 2006; London, 2008; Sarabhai, 2009).
In India, education, and especially higher education, has been acknowledged as an
important driver of development. In 1964, the Education Commission appointed to
advise the government on principles and policies for educational development
recognized that this task was most vital and relevant to economic, cultural and
spiritual development in India (Education Commission, 1966). India’s National
Education Policy (NEP) of 1968 reiterated this vision:
[. . .] radical reconstruction of education [. . .] is essential for economic and cultural
development of the country, for national integration and for the ideal of a socialistic pattern of
society (Government of India, 1998, p. 38).
For education to be an effective driver of development, many more of India’s
18-23 year-olds should be enrolled in higher education. In 1950, India had only
25 universities and 700 colleges with 15,000 teachers and 100,000 students in them.
By 2008, there were 431 universities, 20,677 colleges, 500,000 teachers and more than
11.6 million students (Government of India, 2009). Despite the increase in student
enrolment from 0.7 per cent in 1950-1951 to about 10 per cent in 2001-2002[2], this is still
very low when compared with the world average of 23.2 per cent (World Bank, n.d.).
In response, the government is establishing more government-funded universities and
several private universities are also being set-up. However, access to higher education
remains inadequate and also inequitable, with varied forms of bias: urban-rural,
male-female, rich-poor, caste, religion and regional participation (Thorat, 2006, p. 4).
Just as the government recognizes the link between education and development, a
brief web site review of the aims and guiding principles of some well-known Indian
universities suggests that they take similar views. The universities established by
 Indians when India was still a British colony reflect the ideals of blending the best of Higher education
western education with Indian education traditions, to equip Indian youth with the and curriculum
knowledge, sagacity and self-confidence to demand independence and build a free and
empowered nation[3]. Those universities created soon after Independence in 1947 innovation
reflect the ideals of the new nation striving towards “development”. For example, the
University of Pune, established in 1948, quotes Jawaharlal Nehru (www.unipune.ernet.
in/indexout.html): 143
The University stands for humanism and tolerance, for reason, for adventure of ideas and for
the search of truth. It stands for the forward march of the human race towards even higher
objectives. If the universities discharge their duties adequately then it is well with the nation
and the people.
Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (established in 1969) also claims that
Nehruvian ideals and objectives, such as “national integration, social justice,
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secularism, the democratic way of life, international understanding and scientific

approach to the problems of society” are embedded in the institution (www.jnu.ac.in/
main.asp?sendval ¼ Introduction). Further, still into the twentieth century, TERI
University (established in 1998) focuses on scientific and policy research to confront
the twenty-first century concerns of energy, environment and sustainable development
(www.teriuniversity/ac.in).
The conditions of both pre- and post-independence India – rampant poverty,
economic backwardness, religious strife, social inequality – ensured that essential
principles for sustainable development were entrenched in the idea of education as it
evolved. This includes issues such as social justice, equity, democracy and religious
tolerance. Higher education policy in India has also stressed “moral education and
inculcation of a sense of social responsibility” (Education Commission, 1966;
Government of India, 1998). However, after more than 60 years of independence,
various policy pronouncements and the completion of ten five-year development plans,
these ideals are not widely reflected in social, economic or environmental realities in
India, and its higher education system has been criticized for these inadequacies
(National Knowledge Commission, 2009; Yash Pal Committee, 2009).
Recognizing the relationship between environment and development, the Indian
Government has acknowledged environmental education (EE) as a crucial element of
its development strategy (Government of India, 1981, 1998). In the context of the
country’s socio-economic realities, EE in India has been equally concerned with both
developmental and environmental issues. In recognition of this focus, the NEP in 1986
underlined the need for consciousness of the environment to pervade society and
formal education (Government of India, 1998, NEP: 8.15).

Evaluating compulsory environmental courses

India set an unusual educational example when the highest court in the land responded
to a public interest petition[4] to make Indians more environmentally sensitive and
responsible citizens by ruling that EE should permeate all levels of education (Supreme
Court of India, 1991). The court mandated an undergraduate environment course as the
first step, providing an opportunity to introduce sustainable development issues to
higher education. The court directed the University Grants Commission (UGC),
the apex grant-giving and policy-making body, to facilitate and ensure the delivery of
 IJSHE this course. As initially not many universities complied, the UGC set the academic year
11,2 2004-2005 as the deadline for introducing the environmental studies course. It also
designed a syllabus and commissioned a textbook for the course[5]. This directive has
made EE a reality in most undergraduate institutions, which account for 85 per cent of
students enrolled in higher education in India (Government of India, n.d.).
Independently, as part of its Higher Education programme, an Indian
144 non-governmental organization (NGO), the Centre for Environment Education
(CEE)[6], has designed and offered the compulsory environmental studies course at a
few universities, developed a textbook for the course and organized orientation
programmes for college teachers (Chhokar et al., 2004). CEE staff taught the course, to
better understand the challenges and to test and refine its pedagogy, evaluation methods
and content. In addition, CEE conducted a survey in 2006, to study the status of the
course in its third year, and to gather suggestions for improvement (Chhokar and
Chandrasekharan, 2007). It explored the autonomy and qualifications of those teaching
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the course, the teaching methods and materials used, and the attitudes and levels of
interest among students. The survey was extended countrywide to 90 colleges and
produced responses from instructors at 37 colleges.
The experiences of CEE staff teaching the course revealed that there were
difficulties in engaging students. The end-of-course exam grade did not count towards
students’ final degree award; consequently, most students did not take the course
seriously, and large class sizes discouraged active participation from those who were
interested. Most students expected discussion of “green” and “brown” environmental
issues and were skeptical and even disapproving of discussion on “irrelevant” issues of
equity and social justice.
The survey revealed that the exercise of autonomy by teachers was low. Two-thirds
of the respondents reported that they followed the UGC model syllabus and its
recommended textbook (or one closely modeled on it), without their own input.
Lectures were the predominant teaching method and only a quarter of the respondents
included field visits (sometimes pointing to financial obstacles), despite the UGC
syllabus underlining fieldwork as a necessary element[7]. Similarly, although project
work was an essential component, not all teachers had included it.
Only two of the 37 respondents had received special training to teach the course.
The academic backgrounds of teachers suggested that the course was mostly
understood to be “scientific”. A separate content analysis of several English-language
course textbooks confirmed this tendency to use ecological and natural science
approaches, and that most teachers were not touching upon the social dilemmas of
development issues, or seeking to explore values, as proposed by government policy
(Government of India, 1998, p. 26). The major challenges reported were the lack of
student interest, which teachers attributed to the mandatory and “pass-fail” nature of
the course, the additional workload involved, inadequate understanding about useful
types of project, and difficulties with scientific understanding among humanities
students. The survey results showed a positive correlation between student-led
projects and higher levels of student interest, with indications that tailoring courses to
students’ subject specialization also helped to capture their interest.
These findings suggest that for this initiative to be successful, one significant
change needed is to build capacity among teachers concerning the links between
environment and development, the concept of sustainable development and associated
 pedagogic approaches. They need to be able to contextualize the content to make it Higher education
relevant, and to think and work across disciplines, using the course as an opportunity and curriculum
to experiment with pedagogic methods that go beyond the traditional approaches.
The UGC is now giving more importance to training teachers for the course through innovation
Academic Staff Colleges[8] throughout the country, which offer short programmes in
environmental studies on topics relevant to the course, a recent example being climate
change and sustainable development. 145
Grassroots approaches: Samvardhan and community development
In contrast to the large-scale national endeavour in compulsory EE, smaller and more
locally-situated experiments have seen greater success, as is the case with Samvardhan
(which means “to nurture” in Gujarati). In 1998, Samvardhan began as an experiment in
environmental and sustainability education in rural higher education institutes (RHEIs) in
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the state of Gujarat. The project was designed and implemented by CEE in collaboration
with the UK Field Studies Council (see full discussion in Chhokar and Pandya, 2005;
Sarabhai and Chhokar, 2009). The three-year project selected three RHEIs in ecologically
diverse locations, following the first-year student cohorts in rural development through
their three-year programmes and involving their teachers in the design of the
interventions. The project aimed to improve the connection between curricula and the
real-life experiences and requirements of students, to meet the challenges they will face in
their future professional lives. Samvardhan was based on the Gandhian philosophy of
educating rural youth to bring about development in their villages, and used the
opportunities provided by the RHEIs to develop a cadre of young people who would
actively participate in, facilitate and guide processes of sustainable development.
CEE’s Samvardhan team analyzed the curriculum of the RHEIs, identified suitable
areas where environmental and sustainability concepts, issues and perspectives could
be infused, and developed approaches and methods to achieve this. The curricula were
developed and refined in discussion with the teachers in the locale-specific contexts of
the three RHEIs. In addition, several small interventions helped to reorient activities in
the established curriculum to make them more effective. For example, existing student
visits and placements with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were often not
well planned; in Samvardhan, NGOs were carefully selected for the kind of experience
and exposure they would provide and students were provided with better orientation
to the learning processes that could take place.
The RHEI teachers benefited from a series of well-planned, intensive training
programmes, field visits, exposure tours and participatory exercises over the three years.
They were involved in designing new curriculum content and pedagogic approaches,
which enabled them to build their abilities and skills, to transform their existing
programmes and focus them upon sustainable development. One critical dimension of
this capacity-building was reorientation of the extension component that required
students to undertake development activities in nearby villages. In order to introduce
ecological and equity perspectives, teachers conducted situation analyses and
micro-planning exercises for selected villages, identified relevant projects and
extension activities, and worked intensively with students to help them question their
understanding of the rural situation and to develop and implement their projects. These
mandatory projects also strengthened the extension activities, thereby improving the
relevance of RHEIs in contributing to local development.
 IJSHE Creating graduates with a clear and professional outlook and utilising their
11,2 capabilities for rural development has made Samvardhan an alternative approach to
rural development. The successful model thus developed is being extended and
inducted by CEE into several of its other programmes. Some of the Samvardhan alumni
are now working as successful community entrepreneurs in the villages of Gujarat
(CEE, 2007). Around the time the Samvardhan project ended, the North Gujarat
146 University undertook a review of curriculum of the nine RHEIs affiliated with it.
As some of the teachers who had been involved in the Samvardhan process were part of
the review team, they included several elements of Samvardhan into the revised
curriculum of all the RHEIs.
The success of Samvardhan was the result of a focused approach, working closely
with faculty to build their capacity and making them primary stakeholders in this
innovative programme, with the result that they felt responsible for its success. The
fundamentals of meaningful education, often quoted in policy documents, were
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effectively integrated and tested in this programme. Whilst such an intensive approach
may not be possible for large-scale, country-wide efforts, lessons from the programme
can certainly be applied to other initiatives.

New experiments in environmental and sustainability education

Since its launch in 2005, the DESD has been a catalyst in India to promote the agenda
for change in support of education for sustainable development (Government of India,
2009), but it has made little impact at higher education level and few academics are
aware of it. The Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) is responsible for
implementation of the DESD in India, and has established an expert committee
drawing members from government, NGOs, civil society and academia, under the
Department of Higher Education (Government of India, 2007, p. 241). The Ministry’s
latest Annual Report contains a brief section on the DESD but does not connect this
with other educational activities. For example, the report discusses the development of
Women’s Studies Centres to undertake research, develop curricula and organize
community outreach about gender equity, the importance of education for girls,
population issues and human rights (Government of India, 2007, p. 104). It states that
these activities aim to contribute to social change as well as academic development,
indicating that sustainable development issues are sometimes embedded in higher
education planning, but without explicit links to the principles of education for
sustainable development or the objectives of the DESD.
Independent of the DESD, and in many cases prior to it, a growing focus on
sustainable development and its challenges has become evident in higher education,
perhaps more strongly driven by the emerging needs of industry and society, and
expressed in the initiative of academics and the interests of students. This has taken
many educational forms, including learning from campus practice and through
student-led actions and informal learning opportunities. In the curriculum, many
different approaches are appearing across India’s universities and in a range of
subjects and programmes (Table I).
Some institutions, such as India’s premier engineering institutions, the Indian
Institutes of Technology (IITs), have introduced components of sustainable
development into existing programmes. IIT Kanpur introduced sustainable
development in its Environmental Engineering and Management Programme and
 Higher education
Approaches to ESD Institution/organizationa
and curriculum
1 Introduced sustainable development components IITs, IIMs and some universities and colleges innovation
into existing programmes
2 Created special programmesa
(a) Masters in Sustainable Development Jadavpur University
University of Madras 147
(b) Masters in Public Policy and Sustainable TERI University
Development
(c) MBA Business Sustainability TERI University
(d) Leadership Programme on Nutrition Security Indira Gandhi Open National University
and Sustainable Development
3 Included courses or modules on sustainable
development in various subject areasa
(a) Society and Environment in Department of University of Hyderabad
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Sociology
Jammu University
(b) Principles of Sustainable Development Course Anna University
in ME Environmental Management
(c) Shodh Yatra Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
4 Green campus TERI University
5 Faculty-led community projects University of Pune
with RCE Pune
6 Student-led activities: green colleges, symposia South Asia Youth Environment Network
and action projects Students at various HE institutions
South Asia Youth Environment Network
7 NGO-led programme (e.g. Samvardhan): Centre for Environment Education
curriculum reorientation and community
engagement; teacher training
8 Court-mandated programme on environmental Most undergraduate institutions
studies with a sustainable development focus Table I.
Approaches to ESD in
Note: aThis list is indicative, not comprehensive higher education in India

the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Madras has introduced a course on

Technology and Sustainable Development. IIT Delhi’s Centre for Rural Development
and Technology has a unique initiative focused on the technology needs of formal and
informal production sectors and making connections with social dynamics in rural
areas, as the latter often influence or determine the success of new technologies.
Certain universities[9] have created special programmes; for example, the
University of Madras and Jadavpur University are among those offering Masters in
Sustainable Development. At other institutions, the approach is to include courses or
modules on sustainable development in various subject areas; for example, the
sociology departments at the University of Hyderabad and Jammu University offer
courses on environment and society, and on sustainable development. Anna University
offers a course called Principles of Sustainable Development in its ME Environmental
Management Programme, while Indira Gandhi National Open University offers a
Leadership Programme on Nutrition Security and Sustainable Development. India’s
leading management schools, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), have
introduced sustainable development concerns in some existing courses through
 IJSHE additional modules; for example, IIM Calcutta’s Public Policy group offers courses on
11,2 environment and development and Indian social structure. At IIM Ahmedabad’s
Center for Management in Agriculture, the elective Shodh Yatra course (which
translates as “journey of explorations”) involves direct local engagement (www.sristi.
org/cms/shodh_yatra1). Students walk through villages learning from local knowledge
experts and grassroots innovators, and from children who have extraordinary
148 understanding of local biodiversity, and interacting with other change agents.
The recently established TERI University is a model green campus in terms of
building, energy conservation, water harvesting and conservation, and waste-water
recycling, and also seeks to embed the concept of sustainability and its principles in
most courses[10]. It offers a Masters in Public Policy and Sustainable Development to
mid-career government and corporate sector officials, with a view to facilitating
development-oriented policy making. TERI’s MBA Business Sustainability, in addition
to imparting conventional management skills, seeks to create understanding and
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competence about ethical management practices and sustainability issues.

Meaningful examples of environmental and sustainability education have generally
been initiated by motivated academic faculty, although in some cases they have gained
impetus under the DESD. One such series of curriculum developments has been
facilitated by the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCEs)[11] for Sustainable Development
in Pune. At the University of Pune, individual instructors have worked with local
NGOs to identify projects that could help students to learn in real-world settings whilst
providing assistance to the NGOs. For instance, a group of students of sociology
worked on a research project to study the problems and needs of migrant labour in the
city. Another group of economics students received training to help citizens in the
slums of Pune to become involved in a participatory budgeting exercise that enabled
them to inform the Municipal Corporation about their priorities for allocation of
government funds and to monitor public spending (Menon, 2009).
Some of the most vibrant activities related to sustainable development are being led
by higher education students as extracurricular activities, often through
environmental clubs and youth networks. The South Asia Youth Environment
Network is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme to ensure youth
participation in the process of promoting sustainable development in South Asia. In
India, members have undertaken to create “model green colleges” (http://sayen.org/
projects_ongoing.htm), organizing workshops where they work with students to
identify major issues, such as energy and water conservation, waste management and
managing green spaces, and to work out action plans for implementation. In October
2009, students at IIT Madras organized a symposium on Sustainable Development
focused on energy security to mitigate climate change, on financing sustainable
development and on the challenges of urbanization. The symposium aimed to bring
together students from various disciplines, to debate, discuss and draft “smart policy
recommendations that can make our markets, technologies and lifestyles sustainable”
(www.iitm.ac.in/conferences/371-shaastra-symposium).

Conclusion
The essence of India’s 1966 Education Commission Report, that education should lead
to economic, cultural and spiritual development, is repeated in subsequent education
policy documents. This provides a strong foundation, and the potential to build on it is
 enormous, but to date, implementation has not met the ideals or high standards of the Higher education
policy makers. and curriculum
The mandatory undergraduate environmental studies course provides a major
opportunity to introduce students to sustainable development and to sensitize them innovation
to issues of equity, social justice and sustainable lifestyles. However, it requires
capacity-building among teachers, to enable them to internalize the meaning of
sustainable development with adequate clarity, to work across disciplines and to bring 149
suitable pedagogic approaches into their teaching, to help students to cross knowledge
boundaries. Samvardhan provides an example of how this can be achieved at local
levels and on small scales, and the funding being provided for training through
Academic Staff Colleges is a positive development.
However, the CEE evaluation of the national undergraduate course initiative also
pointed to obstacles in the broader traditions of the Indian examination system.
Examination results determine student progression through the educational levels as
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well as their career prospects, but examinations tend to test information recall rather
than understanding, critical thinking and internalization. This approach contributed to
the perception of irrelevance among students of the environmental studies course,
because neither the course nor its results seemed to contribute to their future prospects.
Instead, when courses are tailored to address students’ professional interests or local
concerns, and involved them in inter-disciplinary project work, their interest is
aroused. As Sterling (2009, p. 20) has noted:
Sustainability is not just another issue to be added to an overcrowded curriculum, but a
gateway to a different view of curriculum, of pedagogy, of organizational change, of policy
and particularly of ethos.
This understanding must permeate the higher education sector, and society at large, to
avoid wasted efforts in the developing field of education for sustainable development.
The DESD is a timely opportunity for the MHRD, UGC and the Association of
Indian Universities to bring debates on sustainable development and the role of higher
education to the active attention of academic faculty and policy makers, university and
college leaders, and to introduce them to successful initiatives from India and abroad.
This could lead to increasingly active debate within academia and among academic
policy-making and management bodies, and to the design and implementation of
meaningful and workable plans that can be built into existing education policies. In the
meantime, the work of student activists, motivated teachers, and committed NGOs in
this area is expected to continue to make progress and to make a difference. This
reflects the growing prioritization for sustainability across society and industry, as
evidenced, for example, in the CII-ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable
Development established by the Confederation of Indian Industry to promote
sustainability in Indian businesses. More ambitious and far-reaching success will
require strong political will and equally strong engagement from academia and the
public at large, to reconstruct educational systems and to situate them in a redefined
economic and ethical paradigm.

Notes
1. A well-known prayer from the ancient Vedas calls for peace to all, including the earth, sky,
water and all life (www.indif.com/nri/mantras/shantimantra.asp).
 IJSHE 2. Latest figures available from World Bank (n.d).
11,2 3. See the web sites of: Jadavpur University, set up in 1906 (www.jadavpur.edu/aboutus/aims.
htm); Aligarh Muslim University (www.amu.ac.in/ssah.htm), originally the Mohammedan
Anglo-Oriental College in 1875; and Banaras Hindu University, established in 1915 (www.
bhu.ac.in/aboutbhu/obj.html). Santiniketan, set up by the Nobel Laureate Tagore and
registered in 1921, was conceived as an unconventional university (known as Visva Bharati)
150 fostering creative and participatory values (www.visva-bharati.ac.in).
4. The petition was filed by the noted environmental lawyer MC Mehta.
5. The UGC develops model syllabi for several courses, which are meant to be indicative rather
than prescriptive. In the case of the environmental studies course, the UGC also
commissioned the Chairman of the syllabus committee to write a textbook for the new
course.
6. The Centre for Environment Education (www.ceeindia.org) is a national organization set-up
in 1984 by the Ministry of Environment and Forests as a Centre of Excellence in
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environmental education.
7. The UGC web site (www.ugc.ac.in/policy/env.html) points to the effectiveness of fieldwork
and the role of the teacher as catalyst for student learning in the field.
8. The Academic Staff Colleges, funded by the UGC and located at universities across India,
were established to improve quality in higher education. They organize orientation
programmes for new faculty and refresher courses for in-service faculty. A certain number of
courses are required for academic promotions.
9. The universities and courses mentioned here are only indicative of the range and do not
present a comprehensive account of this field in higher education institutions in India.
10. Personal communication: TERI’s Registrar and some professors.
11. The United Nations University’s RCE concept aims to create an enabling environment for
organizing activities locally, to enhance collaboration across formal education and between
formal education and local actors in Education for Sustainable Development, such as
research centres, NGOs, local businesses and local government.

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About the author

Kiran Banga Chhokar is a Program Director of Higher Education Programs at the Centre for
Environment Education in India. She is also Co-Editor of the international, peer-reviewed Journal
of Education for Sustainable Development. Kiran Banga Chhokar can be contacted at: kiran.
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chhokar@ceeindia.org

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