ASSESSMENT OF THE SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICES OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

Historically, Nigerian universities have always maintained an international outlook which has enabled them to embrace, though often as late adopters, global trends such as education for sustainable development. Based on content analysis of materials sourced from universities’ websites, this study assessed the sustainability practices of thirty universities selected from the three strategic groups of federal, state and private. Both ANOVA and independent t-test were used in testing the hypotheses. The findings showed that the embrace of sustainability has been slow and piecemeal rather than whole-institution focused. Equally, there was a significant difference among the three groups in their uptake of education for sustainable development. In addition, membership of education for sustainable development networks has significant effect on a university’s propensity to integrate sustainability. One of the policy implications of the findings is that there is need for government intervention in terms of incentives and support through the National Universities Commission and TETFUND as  a means of strengthening the resolve of universities to adopt a whole institution approach to sustainability integration.