The significance of sustainability in higher education: a view to the curricular proposal at a Colombian University

The disparity of sustainability understandings, due to its complexity, in higher education affects not only the curricular proposals but also the practices carried out in and outside of any university campus. To identify this type of understandings, research was carried out at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB), in Medellín, Colombia, one of the most important private universities in the country. The main goal of this research was to diagnose how the SDGs are integrated into five undergraduate and three postgraduate programs at the institution. For the development of this, methodological approaches such as documentary and content analysis were used to appraise the research construct in different documents and identify its tendency. For this identification, an analysis grid was constructed to compare the information; thus, elements related to the SDGs were grouped and the others were discarded. The findings show that UPB has had a focus on social responsibility represented in equity, peace and justice and that today there is a tendency towards the care of natural resources and the ethical reflection this entails. It was also identified that in the Program Educational Projects (PEPs) there is evidence of elements related to the SDGs; however, this occurs in some programs more than in others. Unfortunately, the SDGs are not presented systematically in all PEPs, nor are they a transversal axis; however, UPB is working towards this. Therefore, this study provides a self-evaluative look at the implementation of structural changes so that ESD is included in all programs.