MANY universities around the world offer awareness-raising activities, training courses and even courses entirely dedicated to the ecological transition.
The University of Barcelona has gone one step further by requiring some of its students to take a mandatory course on climate change and its consequences.
The initiative, billed as a world first, will involve 14,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students starting in the 2024-2025 academic year, according to the Guardian.
They will be required to take a course on the ecological and social aspects of the crisis, which will be worth five university credits. It will represent 25 hours of study: 15 of remote learning and 10 face-to-face.
The content of this new course will be determined by a committee of experts and academics including Jofre Carnicer, a professor at the University of Barcelona (UB) and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The Spanish university has announced that it will also develop a training programme on the climate crisis and environmental issues for its 6,000 academic staff.
An initiative that shows, according to the university, how "committed it is to working towards the eradication of the causes of the climate emergency and to mitigating its consequences."
However, some of the institution's students don't see it the same way. The decision to launch a compulsory course on the ecological and social crisis was made after the Spanish branch of the environmental activist group End Fossil took action.
Some of its members occupied a University of Barcelona building for a week to pressure the institution to stop associating with fossil fuel advocates such as oil company Repsol.
The administration of the Catalan university explained in a statement that it could not accede to this request since it depends on private subsidies to ensure its proper functioning. However, it has committed to reviewing the rules that govern these partnerships.
Changing attitudes
For Federico Demaria, a professor of economics at the University of Barcelona who supported End Fossil's action, the partial victory reflects a change in thinking.
"Ten or 15 years ago, the university would have sent in the police. But now you can't kick them out because you know they're right and society supports them," he told the Guardian.
While the University of Barcelona may be the first institution of higher education to require its students to take a course on climate change and its repercussions, other universities could soon follow its example.
At least, that's what climate scientist Jean Jouzel hopes. In February, he submitted a report to the French government's then-Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal, calling for "100% of students with a bachelor's degree" to be trained in the ecological transition within five years.
"The objective is to ensure that everyone has the knowledge and skills to enable them to act for the Ecological Transition as citizens and as professionals," it says.
Although there is no guarantee that the recommendations of Jean Jouzel and his team will be followed, the interest of younger generations in the environmental cause could push public authorities to integrate this issue even more into the school curriculum. – ETX Daily Up, December 1, 2022
