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Title
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SISSTEM: academic STEM program as change agent for sustainable development on the small island state of Aruba
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Author
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Abstract
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| Academic university programmes educate the future generations of highly-skilled people in our society, thereby having the potential to act as change agents for sustainable development within their region. The SISSTEM – Sustainable Island Solutions through Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – is an academic programme currently being deployed at the University of Aruba in partnership with KU Leuven, Belgium. It aims to educate a new generation of engineers and scientists, policy makers and entrepreneurs who have a profound knowledge of STEM subjects in a sustainability context, and who can apply this knowledge in the particular setting of a small island state (SIS) like Aruba. This allows to further strengthen the island’s sustainable growth and development. In this chapter we evaluate whether the SISSTEM programme does indeed have the potential to be a change agent for sustainable development on Aruba. The evaluation is based on five critical factors, namely the consideration of dominant sustainability challenges in the region, the financing structure and independence, the institutional organization, the democratic processes and the communication and interaction with society. We conclude that the programme has significant potential of becoming a critical change agent in Aruba, the Caribbean and potentially other SIS. The approach of the SISSTEM programme described here can be of interest to other higher education institutes around the globe that aim at developing new or improving existing curricula in order to become change agents for sustainability. |
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Language
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English
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Source (book)
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The Bloomsbury handbook of sustainability in higher education: an agenda for transformational change / Purcell, W. [edit.]; Haddock-Fraser, J. [edit.]
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Publication
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Bloomsbury Publishing
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2022
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ISBN
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978-1-350-24434-4
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