Environmental Education for Sustainable Development: The Case of University of Cape Coast-Ghana

Aim: To determine students’ knowledge in greening, sustainable development and the readiness to embrace environmental education as part of the curricular in the different programs offered at the University of Cape Coast-Ghana as a way of preparing them well for future work. Study Design: A survey was used for the study. Place and Duration of Study: The University of Cape Coast from May to June 2015. Methodology: A total of 270 students from 23 different departments of the University of Cape Coast were sampled and studied. A questionnaire was self-developed, pilot tested and


INTRODUCTION
Education has been the foundation of development in most countries with Ghana being no exception.Education in Ghana occupies a highly important place especially in the socioeconomic development of the country.Students' enrollment in colleges and universities have increased greatly to match the increasing population in Ghana and its relative need for trained personnel to manage the industrial sector and other fields to sustain the country's technological growth.One would have expected that the upsurge of private universities in the country coupled with the increase in enrollment at the existing public universities would have produced enough qualified graduates to properly manage our resources and promote sustainable economic development in the country.Rather it seems there is an escalating graduate unemployment and lack of jobs in Ghana.This trend is disturbing and calls for a critical look at the content, presentation and relevance of the different programs being offered at the country's tertiary institutions.How sustainable is our education which intends hopefully to define development in the country?Sustainable development comprises three constituents, the environment, society and economy which promote welfare among people [1].Various individuals, groups and organizations have highlighted the need to include environmental education in regular school curricular and programs as a way to prepare graduates better for natural resource management and work after school.
In 2005, the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) was introduced to make stronger government commitments to include sustainable development and environmental education into all education systems, strategies and public awareness by 2014.Education must be made climate compatible and linked to sustainable development in order to meet the needs of the 21st century and beyond.Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a method of teaching and learning which focuses on the ideals and principles that underlie sustainability.As such, ESD promotes multi-stakeholder social learning; emphasizes the empowerment of communities and citizens; engages with key issues such as human rights, poverty reduction, sustainable livelihoods, climate change, and gender equality in an integral way; and encourages changes in behavior that will create a more sustainable future [2].
Anderson and Morgan [2] suggest that environmental education, climate change and scientific literacy, disaster risk reduction and preparedness, and education for sustainable lifestyles and consumption need to be incorporated in teaching and learning.They further stressed the need for learners to be conversant with basic scientific concepts, knowledge that will allow them to differentiate certainties from uncertainties, risks and consequences of environmental degradation, disasters and climate change, knowledge of mitigation and adaptation practices that can add to creating resilience and sustainability.Universities are often said to be large economic engines that greatly affect the areas or districts they occupy.In addition, universities are areas of innovation and learning and thus the campus may be an ideal location to impart knowledge on the concepts of sustainable development.If students are provided with such knowledge, they will be able to influence and help others engage in sustainable development wherever they find themselves after their education.The United Nations declared in the year 2005 through to 2014, considered as the decade of Education for sustainable development, how much has education in Ghana helped the country achieve sustainable development?It is time to look at the possibility of including environmental education and the topic sustainable development in a variety of subject areas in tertiary institutions and not necessarily only as a school subject as recommended earlier by the Canadian Sustainability Curriculum Review Initiative [11].This declaration supports efforts to inculcate the concept of sustainability into all educational settings including teacher education and other school subjects.Savageau [11] also highlighted the need to personalize and make sustainability more real to students.In a similar vein, Hay and others [12] suggested that the traditional single discipline subjects most university departments emphasize need to be changed.Universities need to partner with industry, government agencies and international agencies so as to be well positioned to make certain that their programs integrate current issues and offer practical insights into environmental and developmental policies [13].They further stressed that changes in goals, attitudes, values and approaches concerning environment and development have significant implications for Human Resource Development.Do curricula that universities design and implement contain a mix of multidisciplinary and single discipline knowledge and skills?Hay et al. [12] reported that this mix will put graduates in a position that will enable them assess broader issues as well as contribute to the design and management aspects in their areas of specialization.How much environmental education and sustainable development is included in the various programs offered at the University of Cape Coast?
As earlier mentioned, education for sustainable development seems not to have a worldwide agreed conception of sustainable development thus brings up numerous issues such as different people using the same language to mean different things.Scott and Gough [13]  that the continent's higher education institutions continue to remain significant in the continent's developmental needs, then it is pertinent that these higher education institutions are evaluated to assess their progress towards achieving sustainable development education.This study thus focused on finding out from a group of University of Cape Coast students their knowledge in greening, sustainable development and their readiness to embrace environmental education as an extra subject or topic in the curricular of different programs offered at the university.

METHODOLOGY
A self developed questionnaire was used to collect data from a group of students studying different programs at the University of Cape Coast.Questions covered issues in "greening", how well students are conversant with sustainability issues, suggestions to improve the "green: environment on campus and the possibility of incorporating environmental education into individual courses taken by students or to the curricula of all programs.The questionnaire was pilot tested using 30 students and the alpha Cronbach determined as 0.76 which is acceptable and so the questionnaires were deemed reliable enough to collect the required data.An examination center which comprised of 3 lecture halls was selected for distribution of questionnaires.Students who occupied these examination halls were from different departments but had gathered together to write examinations for common courses taken by first year students called communication skills and liberals.
These students belonged to 23 different departments and are expected to graduate with Bachelor of Education degrees, Bachelor of Arts degrees and Bachelor of Science degrees among others.Although the students sampled belonged to different departments in the University, they were easily identified as a group because they all meet together for common courses in communicative skills and liberal studies.The group of students selected gives a good representation of the different programs offered at the University of Cape Coast.A total of 270 questionnaires were distributed to the students, out of which 254 completed ones were retrieved.Responses from the questionnaires were collated and analyzed using SPSS version 21.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A total of 270 questionnaires were distributed to the students who participated in the study and 254 of those questionnaires were retrieved giving a high response rate of (94%  2.0 2.8 5.9 3.9 4.3 3.9 7.1 2.8 7.1 3.9 5.9 3.9 3.9 4.3 4.3 3.9 4.7 3.9 5.9 3.9 3.9 3.5 3.9 3.9 With the exception of one student, the rest were level 100 (first year) students.Probably, the individual who stated that he or she was in level 200 could be taking the course for the second time probably as a result of failing the first time he/she took the class.Participants understanding of "Green" with reference to the University of Cape Coast campus is provided in (Table 2) below.With the exception of 2 individuals who understood "Green as the color green, the remaining 99% of the participants had similar laudable ideas of what green should be.Most of the responses provided by the participants implied that for a campus to be green, "there is need for vegetation cover on campus" or "the need to plant trees for environmental purposes", "as well as "planting trees for beautification".As reported by Too and Bajracharya [18] the advent of social media technologies has vastly increased the awareness of green issues among several people.Other authors have stated that although several people know and are aware of the need to be sensitive to environmental issues, only a few reflect on this when it comes to certain behaviors including purchasing [19].Following this, a holistic strategy has been recommended as necessary to help engage communities in sustainability practices.Majority of the responses provided by participants as their understanding of the term sustainability all boils down to ensuring efficient use of natural resources so that the natural environment will be maintained.It is interesting to note that about 25% of the participants each separately mentioned that sustainability is either the efficient use of resources or using natural resources and leaving some for the future generation.Earlier on Dobson [20]  initiatives to environmental management need to be looked at critically.Education for sustainability often geared at sustainable future could also be looked at as one of the several concepts of education (UNESCO) Education for sustainable development in Action [14].This Action plan identified curriculum reoriented to sustainability as knowledge, issues, skills, perspectives and values.Others have looked at it as active, relevant and interdisciplinary (UNESCO) ESDA Technical paper [21,14].Since the students in this study were willing to accept and take environmental courses irrespective of the programs they are enrolled in, it is highly recommended that some environmental courses be added to programs at the university to empower upcoming graduates to be more employable.

Table 4 . Participants response to whether UCC campus is green & sustainable
Ghana, the need to increase the knowledge, skills and commitment of the people, and lay structures and systems in place may be vital.Also, recent trends in human resource development in Ghana, examination of the efforts required to facilitate sustainable development,

Table 5 . Participants views on addition of environmental issues to the curricular
Participants have a good idea of what greening is and other environmental issues but results from this study cannot conclude that the students are well versed in environmental education.Participants showed great interest in studying environmental issues should it be added to the curricular of the various programs they undertake at the University of Cape Coast.However, in order to include sustainable development in educational curriculum and instruction in an educationally defensible manner; the respective lecturers at the university must have enough conceptualization of sustainable development and process for systematic assimilation or else adopt approaches that are more like training.