Student Interest for Environment/Sustainability Undergraduate Programmes: Recent Australian Experience

Abstract

Increasingly, employers are seeing the need to have employees who have capabilities in sustainability. The hope is that there will be a sufficient number of appropriately educated people to enter the environment profession to meet the needs of these employers and the community. For some two decades a range of university programmes in Australia have been graduating a steady stream of environment professionals. However, recent data for the preferences expressed by prospective students for environment and sustainability related programmes indicates that there has not been a growth in the popularity of these programmes as might be expected from the public awareness of environmental issues. Rather, there has been a trend of reduced popularity. If the future needs of employers and the broad community for environment professionals is to be met, increased numbers of young people will have to be attracted to the university programmes. Without going into specifics, the article provides some broad suggestions for what could be done.