Envisioning the Indigenised university for sustainable development

Abstract

Purpose While the possibility of a university fostering sustainable development is present in the extant literature and policy documents, the idea still warrants further consideration. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the nature and outcomes of the university’s engagement with Indigenous communities and perceptions of Indigenous knowledge systems in both academic and non-academic activities, and what might be required to foster the university’s contributions towards sustainable development. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative case study of the only public university in The Gambia was conducted, including non-university actors. Interviews and focus group discussion methods were used, and these enabled close collaboration between researchers and participants, and the latter were empowered to describe their perceptions of reality. Findings Three major sets of findings emerged from the analysis of the transcripts from interviews and focus group discussions with the university and community members. These are the limited nature of and outcomes from university–community engagement, the sustainable outcomes of Indigenous practices and ideas for Indigenising university engagement for sustainable development. Practical implications Particular implications of the study that underpins this paper can be underscored; these include: a contribution to the literature on ways of connecting Indigenous communities with universities, and to a conceptualisation of the Indigenised university; a provision of insights into the connectivity between university community engagement, Indigenous knowledge systems and sustainable development; the creation of a context for subsequent studies on practical steps that universities might take in the direction of epistemic justice and sustainable development for all; and heightening the intractability of theoretical and philosophical issues of epistemology, knowledge ecology and epistemological justice, as they reveal themselves in practice, in complex situations. Originality/value Matters of the university reaching out to Indigenous peoples have yet to find their way into conceptualisations of the university for sustainable development. This paper addresses this gap in the existing literature by advancing possibilities for the Indigenised university for sustainable development to emerge.

The orchestration of a sustainable development agenda in the European Higher Education Area

“…Moreover, related policies and funding provisions for their implementation are not always clear (Assefa et al , 2017; Jacob, 2017), and Indigenous peoples are often side-lined in the SDG policy implementation process (Johnson and Mbah, 2021). There is also a lack of focus on HE in the SDGs, particularly in the education-related Goal 4 “Quality Education”, which hinders the progress of developing countries (Mbah et al , 2022).…”

Mapping universities-communities partnerships in the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals

“…While insights into the global partnership for the goals are captured in the 19 targets of SDG17, it is worth highlighting that this is not limited to partnerships at the macro levels of North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation as expressed in target 6 but also includes, micro level partnerships in member states of the UN, and touching on capacitybuilding in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the SDGs as maintained in target 9 (Küfeoğlu, 2022). Just as it can be argued that an enterprise cannot effectively contribute to sustainable development without being sustainable in the first instance (Mbah et al, 2022), global partnerships for the goals begin with strong systems and structures that support national partnerships for the goals, and this includes multi-stakeholder partnerships, cross-sector partnerships, sustainable community plans, quality of governance, policy coherence, and shared commitment (MacDonald et al, 2018;Maltais et al, 2018;Castillo-Villar, 2020;Eweje et al, 2020). Within the context of national or local partnerships for the SDGs, the role of university-community/industry partnerships cannot be overlooked.…”

Measuring Organizational Leadership in Africa

“…A leadership survey was administered in 2019 to employees of a university in The Gambia. The university is committed to community development (Mbah et al, 2022). Like African leadership studies in general as discussed previously, African educational leadership studies have been dominated by South African scholars studying South African educational leaders (Hallinger, 2018) so there is added value to any research that is conducted in other African countries.…”