Engineering sustainability: Devising a suitable sustainability education intervention for the Nigerian engineering curriculum

Despite its commitment to global sustainability pacts, Nigeria does not currently have a framework for sustainability in engineering education. This study aims to formulate a sustainability education intervention for the Nigerian engineering curriculum. Using the mixed-method approach, the study assessed the level of sustainability knowledge of the Nigerian engineering community, examined the sustainability content of the Nigerian engineering curriculum, and proposed a context-relevant sustainability education intervention. Data for the study were sourced variously from publications of regulatory bodies, engineering handbooks, surveys and workshops with stakeholders. The Nigerian engineering community was discovered to have low sustainability literacy based on a sustainability literacy test, level of stakeholder awareness of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, and self-assessment of sustainability knowledge. Both content analysis and stakeholder survey converged on the low sustainability content of the Nigerian engineering curriculum. With insights gained from the findings, a bipartite intervention consisting of a guideline and an introductory sustainable engineering course is proposed. Whilst the guideline specifies roles for government, regulators, university leaders and faculty, the designed course features 15-weekly topics for adoption in the engineering handbooks. Aspects of the proposed course trialled in a sustainable engineering workshop indicated favourable prospects for the introduction of the course. Workshop participants were unanimous in declaring the usefulness and expediency of sustainability education in the Nigerian engineering curriculum. Although the research findings are particularly relevant to the Nigerian engineering curriculum, the study confirms the slow uptake of sustainability education in the developing world. By closely examining the feasibility of sustainability education intervention in the engineering curriculum in a different cultural and social setting, the research contributes to the global efforts towards the reorientation of engineering education to sustainability