The role of universities in sustainable development with special focus on Pakistan

Abstract

Certainly, sustainable development has to be an essential part of strategy for the future development of the education sector in Pakistan. The main objective of this concept is to make the higher education to be recognized as the foremost contributor to society's efforts to achieve sustainability. Acquiring sustainable development needs cooperation among sectors and institutions, and the involvement of all the concerned partners and individuals. Nevertheless, there are a lot of diverse ways people and institutions can work together to share knowledge, to advocate and to take action. These consist of campaigning networks, communities of practice, knowledge networks, public-private partnerships, multi- stakeholder partnerships and strategic alliances. These have all become vital mechanisms for pin pointing priorities, conducting combined research and for appealing other stakeholders in initiating practicable solutions. By means of combining their efforts, members of networks and partnerships are able to have a bigger impact on policy and practice than they would have on their own. An infrastructure building is one of the meager elements of sustainable development and engineering universities play vital role to spread it inconsonance with the social needs. There is great need to establish practical liaison between the engineering sector and the social development sector, it is important for the establishment and maintenance of social cohesion for building the infrastructure for the well being of the masses. This paper highlights the reasons which make the institutions of higher education in Pakistan suitable contenders to lead the notion of Education for Sustainable Development. There is no reason that the achievement of this objective cannot be assured exclusively and without proper linkages with government, communities, NGOs and private sector.