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In 2022, 311 units directly related to SDG4 were offered across Monash University, with a total enrolment of 9,789 individual students.
The units highlighted below are a small sample of the units at Monash relating to quality education:
Monash Business School is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative to raise the profile of sustainability in schools, equip business students to deliver change and progress the Sustainable Development Goals.
With the Dean’s Awards for PRME Education Excellence firmly established as part of the annual recognition of excellence, in 2022 the Monash Business School continued to develop and embed ethical and responsible perspectives into its programs, addressing environmental outlooks, development, and ecological sustainability as key topics for teaching across undergraduate and graduate degree offerings.
The Master of Environment and Sustainability was the first postgraduate program in Australia to be comprehensively mapped to cover the 17 SDGs. The program, incorporating interdisciplinary collaboration models, was co-developed with 12 faculties, institutes, and centres as well as dozens of industry partners and has since been copied by other universities around the world.
The Master of Environmental Sustainability won the 2019 National Banksia Foundation Award, the highest award in the field in Australia.
The Master of Inclusive Education is designed for teachers who wish to develop specialist knowledge and skills in inclusive practices in classrooms. It enables students to explore theory, current research, practical methods and regulatory contexts that inform effective strategies to support children, adolescents and adults with learning, social and behavioural challenges. The program helps students develop an understanding of contemporary educational issues around social justice and equity.
The Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance has developed a range of teaching and learning materials and opportunities that highlight a First Nations lens, truth-telling, historical acceptance and an understanding of reconciliation.
In 2022 this included the development and first iteration of an On Country unit, redesigned coursework and assessment to incorporate the concepts of reconciliation and the development of personal reconciliation plans as part of assessment, and a suite of new learning materials designed for use in multiple units.
The Monash Virtual School provides free online opportunities for disadvantaged young people. A partnership between the Faculty of Education, philanthropic donors and non-government organisations, the Monash Virtual School works to enhance STEM educational opportunities for girls and young women.
In 2022, more than 25,000 places were booked in our online revision classes. Internationally, the program works to enhance geopolitical security through educational opportunities for young people impacted by conflict. In 2022 over 70,000 places were booked in the Monash Virtual School’s online classes by students from Ukraine and Myanmar.
Other SDGs:
MSDI hosts the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Regional Network for Australia, NZ & Pacific (SDSN AusNZPac). In 2022, SDSN AusNZPac co-organised nine virtual sessions with Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS) and Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Australia and New Zealand to discuss good practices, challenges and opportunities for mainstreaming education for the SDGs to all higher education students. The sessions involved speakers from 28 universities and networks in the region, and registrants from nearly 40 countries. SDSN AusNZPac Youth focussed on climate action, including developing a position statement with 60 youth leaders from around Asia/Pacific that identified priorities for COP27. It also supported students to establish SDSN Youth SDG Hubs at four universities in the region.
Monash Global Campus Intensives (MGCIs) are intensive interdisciplinary units offered across the Monash campus network. Open to students from Australia and Malaysia in their second year or later, students can take from a single three-week module up to a full semester’s study load. Students select from program themes that address the world's most pressing challenges, examining them in a local geopolitical and cultural context.
Themes hosted at Monash University’s Prato Centre in 2022 included sustainability in industries, human rights, climate change law, and migration. Students enrolled in ‘Sustainable Tuscany’, for example, engaged with industries through guest lectures and site visits, learning about impactful sustainable projects that highlight the tradition of creativity and innovation that makes Italy a global leader in these fields.
The Global Immersion Guarantee’s Malaysia program and Special Topic in Social Science are field-based units enabling students to visit communities to work on sustainability issues around human impact on the Malaysian environment. Students work closely with community representatives and stakeholders to identify complications arising from the implementation of SDG-related initiatives on the ground, and work with these groups to help address the effects, in the process, exploring how their position as global citizens can contribute to these initiatives and issues.
The Monash Centre for Professional Development and Monash Online Education supports the faculties and other areas in the University in the development and execution of formal life-long learning opportunities, including professional development, short courses, executive education and micro-credential courses.
Monash Business School’s Executive Education team delivered a customised year-long program, the Epworth Senior Medical Leadership Program, to a select cohort of doctors at Epworth, a large not-for-profit healthcare provider. The program focused on innovation, entrepreneurship, culture, change management, and leadership in the healthcare sector.