A consultative workshop was held here at the Government College University Lahore on Friday in collaboration with Ministry of Climate Change, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEF) and the university's Environment Protection Society (EPS) to devise strategies and recommendations to integrate concepts, principles and values of sustainable consumption and production in tertiary education curricula and raise awareness among the faculty members of tertiary education institutions.
Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Hassan Amir Shah chaired the inaugural session of the workshop attended by head of departments and faculty members of various disciplines from GC University Lahore, International Islamic University, Lahore College for Women University, Kinnaird College for Women University and Punjab Environment Protection Department.
In his key note address, UNEF Consultant Professor Dr Muhammad Irfan Khan said that Ministry of Climate Change with support from Switch-Asia Program of European Union and technical assistance from Asia-Pacific Regional Office of UNEF had launched a sustainable consumption and production program. For development of a National Action Plan for sustainable consumption and production, a countrywide consultative process has been initiated by holding such workshops and this is the first workshop in the series at GCU," he said.
He also said there was growing evidence that tertiary education, through its role in empowering domestic constituencies and nurturing favourable frameworks of governance was vital to a country's efforts to increase social capital and to promote social cohesion, which was proving to be an important determinant of economic growth and development.
Vice Chancellor Professor Hassan Shah said that there was a dire need to update curricula and integrate the concepts of sustainable consumption and production in various disciples like Pakistan studies and Islamic studies where the students were taught same topics year after year. GCU Dean Faculty of Social Sciences Professor Dr Tahir Kamran stressed on the need of developing civic culture in the students and emphasized the role the academia should play in achieving this goal. Later, working Groups from Science and Engineering, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Administrative Sciences worked out and made recommendations for the incorporation of sustainable consumption and production in their respective curricula.
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