Higher Education for Sustainable Construction: Assessing Civil Engineering and Architecture Curricula at Nine Burundian Universities

Abstract

Abstract Civil engineering is changing and needs to change more especially since it plays a main role as a fundamental activity in the creation of services and infrastructures with a high environmental impact. For many years, the need arose to equip civil engineering students, engineers, and architects of tomorrow with a wider horizon of environmental, economic, and social concepts for decision-making sensitive to sustainability issues. Nevertheless, a vast literature on the evaluation of higher education institutions’ involvement in including sustainability concept in the curricula exists in abundance; but an absence of studies on the inclusion of this concept in curricula by specific university faculties such as civil engineering is readily apparent. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the contribution of the civil engineering curriculum in Nine Burundian Universities to integrating sustainability in the civil engineering industry in Burundi and abroad. The evaluation of program models following the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System shows a weak Burundian universities’ commitment to integrating sustainability into the civil engineering curricula and sustainability concepts in the civil engineering industry. For better participation of higher education institutions involved in the training of civil engineers and architects in Burundi to promote sustainable construction technologies adoption; a restructuring of the teaching programs in the faculty of civil engineering and architecture by adding courses related to sustainable construction and those including some sustainable construction gears is proposed. The lack of studies and publications in this field in the Burundian context limited this study.