Education in basic competences for sustainable development. The role of University

This article aims to help spread the introduction of criteria and values consistent with sustainability into the curricula of higher education institutions. One of the specific actions recommended in the document approved by the Executive Committee of the Working Group on Environmental Quality and Sustainable Development of the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (Conferencia de Rectores de las Universidades Espanolas, Valladolid, 2005) is to include basic cross-curricular contents in all degree-earning processes for the development of the competences required by environmental and social sustainable human development. The goal is for all graduates to have acquired basic competences for taking decisions and conducting professional activities from the sustainability perspective. The pursuit of this goal involves a comprehensive curricular overhaul. The specification of key competences for sustainability as part of the set of general or basic competences is a requirement set by Spanish legislation for the creation of new university curricula as part of the European higher-education harmonisation process, whose guidelines contain principles for the application of criteria directing university studies toward sustainability. This study provides a synthetic analysis of the different proposals that have specified criteria frameworks used to direct the development of basic sustainability competences in educational processes. From the standpoint of theoretical, practical and ethical rationality applicable to education for sustainability, the article proposes a model of skills for furthering sustainability. This model is based on the results of internal surveys intended to university professors and the study of similar research in diverse contexts. The proposed model focuses on three cores: the cognitive core (knowing), the methodological core (knowing how to do) and the attitudinal one (knowing how to be and how to value).