- This paper seeks to review the landscape of students’ engagement in Kenya's Higher Education's greening agenda, with a view to suggesting options for its enhancement.
The lack of practical application of the knowledge gained in class remains a concern on student engagement activities. Students opine that curriculum and pedagogy need to be transformed so as to move away from rote learning and regurgitation in exams to create critical learners capable of problem-solving and innovation. Students affirm that they need real-life work experience, practical application of their knowledge and a range of soft skills and values such as communication, critical and whole-systems thinking, problem-solving and responsible citizenship to improve their employability and create their own green enterprises.
The policy on student governance and the wider political context shape how student engagement develops. Kenyan universities have discrete student environmental sustainability
initiatives that lack institution-wide coordination. The institutions do not have formal comprehensive plans to guide student engagement in advancing sustainability. Environmental
Sustainability is not infused into guiding student policy documents (such as student handbooks) and the strategic plans of student service departments such as Directorate of Student Welfare / Student Welfare Authority / Dean of Student Offices. The apparent lack of co-ordination of students' engagement environmental sustainability leads to minimallyfunded ad-hoc activities rather than strategic initiatives with measurable impacts. The current students' activities are mainly focused on tree planting, clean-ups and organising talks with a little reflection on the students’ own learning behaviours’ and significant improvement of the campus environment.
There is need for a head-heart-hands approach to inform, inspire and empower students with the values, skills and conditions to enable them influence the practices of the higher education academy. Student engagement should be distinguished from student satisfaction which focuses on feedback on the quality of a range of inputs to learning rather than the extent to which students are actively and productively engaged in using them (Hardy and Bryson, 2009). It goes beyond ‘giving a voice to the students’ to empowering them 'to be the force for transformative change.' Below are specific recommendations for enhancing student engagement in promoting environmental sustainability in Kenya's Higher Education Institutions:
Embed student engagement into the universities' policies, strategies, plans and management structure
Mainstream environmental sustainability into governing student unions and student professional clubs
Mainstream sustainability literacy into the first years' orientation programs to generate more interest, awareness, and action in sustainability on campus
Provide well structured and coordinated paid internships as well as an entrepreneurial
ecosystem to incubate student-led green enterprises
Facilitate peer mentoring and training on sustainability principles and practices
Develop 'Live Projects' for hands-on learning while improving campus environments.
Support co-ordinated, collaborative and student-led community engagement programs such as academic service learning, co-curricular service learning and volunteer activities
Create a Student Green Office or Committee to coordinate to coordinate university-wide
student-led sustainability initiatives.
Create student sustainability fund to provide sustainable financial support for advancing environment sustainability
Involve students as 'pedagogic consultants' in the formal process of course design, revalidation, and professional development of their staff
Develop a toolkit on student engagement
Create an online portal to showcase best practices on student engagement
Create sustainability awards systems to recognize transformative student work
Discuss and measure student engagement and relate it to the quality assurance and enhancement agenda. The Commission for University Education (CUE) should support
National Student Engagement Surveys to provide a more live picture of the views, priorities and experiences of students as a basis for developing meaningful local policy to mainstream environmental sustainability into curriculum and eventually to be factored into quality assurance activities.
