Sustainable development as a challenge of engineering education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to research the ways of integrating sustainable development into study programs of engineering faculties in an international context, as well as to analyze the current state of engineering education for sustainable development at the universities of the Republic of Serbia. Therefore, a desktop research, as well as an analysis of the engineering education curricula, have been conducted. The results of the research indicated to two possible approaches to the integration of SD into the engineering curricula - in the form of special subjects dedicated to the problems of sustainable development in the engineering, or as an integrative approach which implies that sustainable development becomes an integral part of the entire curriculum. Subjects dedicated to sustainable development have been identified at all universities, but not at all faculties where engineers are educated in the Republic of Serbia, they are present at all levels of study (undergraduate, master, doctoral), as well as within applied, integrated and specialist studies, and by status they are most often elective. The results confirm that the engineering curricula open up towards the questions of sustainable development both in international context, and in higher education of the Republic of Serbia and as such, they can serve to the relevant ministries of education and science, universities and engineering faculties as a recommendation in which way to plan and design higher education of engineers in the future in order to provide overall support in the integration of sustainability into the engineering.