Expectations and Interests of University Students in COVID-19 Times about Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed the world, creating the need for new actions from society, including universities and companies. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are part of a global agenda, but this priority is not significant to university students. Although some research has focused on SDGs and university students, there is a lack of evaluation and comparison in Latin American countries. The current study aims to evaluate student knowledge of the SDGs, the relation of student professional careers to the SDGs, the importance of the SDGs for economic development after the COVID-19 pandemic, and student interest research in SDG issues. The study is carried out with students in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. The instrument was developed and validated. The highest score of level of knowledge was reported in Mexico and the lowest score in Colombia. This outcome can be explained by the availability of training programs in the universities about SDGs. The availability of programs created and promoted by the governments can also be a reason; however, students from Mexico are the ones who felt the most that the authorities are not making efforts to promote the SDGs. With research interests, interests in creating sustainable cities and communities, and responsible consumption and production were recognized for the four countries. The outcomes reveal several interesting insights through comparisons among the four countries considered according to descriptive analyses. Some SDGs were found to be more important for some countries than others. Interests were noted in research on some SDGs.

The Higher Education Sustainability before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Spanish and Ecuadorian Case

“…Moreover, following the present results, previous studies have demonstrated that difficulties in achieving sustainable educational institutions continue to be presented [92], and these organizations should move towards sustainable goals [93]. Nevertheless, most studies focused on the students as the most significant agents, integrating the new educational models accordingly o their age [14,73,94]. Despite that, Freidenfelds et al [92] indicated that sustainable goals should focus on the stakeholders, students, researchers, and staff, being optimal to understand the teachers better.…”

“…Several countries have integrated new reforms to renew the staff, gathering younger and further trained university teachers, all of this to achieve a sustainable educational institution [73]. These measures are based on creating activities related to the facilitation of decision-making and implementation of sustainability policies [90,91].…”

“…Nevertheless, these factors or comparisons between countries with similar structures or roots, such as Ecuador and Spain, with comparable ICTs and teachers' skills, have not been studied (Table 1) [49,70,71]. Following the comparison between these two countries, fewer studies are available for understanding the Ecuadorian education changes caused by COVID-19 [60,72,73]. In Ecuador, recent researches have focused on the mental health of Ecuadorian students focusing on the pressure and impact of using ICTs [72], resources available at the time [60], and the experience of the teacher [72].…”

Factors Affecting Green Entrepreneurship Intentions in Business University Students in COVID-19 Pandemic Times: Case of Ecuador

“…The pandemic has generated adverse effects both at the individual and the collective level. The health system offers various services [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], but the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted health professionals [12][13][14][15][16] and individuals [17][18][19][20], both in their expectations [21] and in their usual activities such as education [22]. A similar impact has happened in previous epidemics [23].…”

Education system of Nepal: impacts and future perspectives of COVID-19 pandemic

“…According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the closures of academic institutions have impacted more than 1.5 billion students and youth across the globe directly/indirectly ( UNESCO, 2020 ). The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world, creating the need for new actions from society, including universities and academia ( Alvarez-Risco et al., 2021 ). Cease of the physical presence of students and teachers in the classroom for teaching and learning have switched the academic institutions to online teaching and virtual education.…”