A vision on the role of environmental higher education contributing to the sustainable development in Malaysia

Higher education is a unique intellectual contributor to society's efforts to achieve sustainability, through the practices of skills, consultancies, trainings, and exchange of knowledge. University researchers are the first alarms to alert the environmental challenges, and assist to spearhead a multidisciplinary of technical solutions. Malaysia, endowed with its rich natural resources and diversity recognizes the need to adopt a sound developmental framework to transform the country's educational landscape into a high quality and excellent level. This policy forms the core strategies in moving Malaysia of meeting the needs of human resource development, and creates a pool of highly competent knowledgeable workers. In parallel to this development, both government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) continue to advocate national efforts to address environmental program for incorporating the sustainability of environmental literacy and conservation of ecosystems. The plan espouses the vision of building a strong and resilient, vibrant and competitive socio-economic development, for the maintenance of sound environmental conditions. The impetus to develop Education for Sustainable Development is accompanied by the integration of environmental protection rules, and boosted by the implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). With the aforementioned, the present work describes the historical evolution of environmental higher education in Malaysia. The fragmented policies, central government's roles, and the concept of green campus are elucidated. Besides, the research breakthroughs and joint co-operations as an implementation arm for the promotion of public education and green technology are outlined. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.