Learning, teaching and research constitute core purposes of an educational institution to address sociocultural responsibility, environmental sustainability and sustainable development. Through formal and informal curricula, skills training and development, knowledge transfer and research, institutions have a significant, positive long-term impact on society.
Graduate Capabilities Framework
Graduate capabilities are the shared set of qualities, skills and understandings that students develop through their university education. They represent an integration of knowledge, skills, personal qualities and understanding that graduates use appropriately and effectively, in familiar disciplinary contexts and in response to new and changing circumstances.
Students joining our university today will graduate into one of the most consequential periods in human history. The science tells us we have approximately 25 years to fundamentally redesign the interconnected human and natural systems that underpin every economy, community, and ecosystem on Earth. By 2050, today's students will be at the height of their professional influence. Leading organisations, shaping policy, and educating the generation that follows. Every career decision they make from graduation onwards occurs within this critical transformation window.
The Graduate Capability Framework is a shared commitment to our students and communities that a degree from the University of Tasmania prepares people to succeed in their chosen fields and to contribute meaningfully to the transitions our world needs to make. The Framework articulates five capabilities: Systems Thinking and Analysis; Adaptive Professional Excellence; Transformative Change Agency for Holistic Sustainability; Creative Innovation and Cultural Expression; and Relational Intelligence and Personal Agency, across fifteen domains, each with structured progression descriptors.
Our curriculum is preparation for immediate contribution and future impact. Transformation will not happen to our graduates; it will happen through them.
Sustainability Literacy
Sustainability literacy is defined as knowledge about our shared sustainability challenges and ways to create solutions to these challenges. Sustainability literacy surveys are designed to assess student understanding of the interconnectedness of social, economic and environmental issues and challenges, and not just knowledge about the environment or environmental problems. Hence, sustainability literacy assessments focus on knowledge of sustainability topics and challenges rather than sustainability culture (i.e., values, behaviours, beliefs).
The University of Tasmania's Sustainability Team developed an initial Sustainability Literacy Survey in 2023. This survey is conducted annually in tandem with our Sustainability Culture Surveys and Travel Behaviour Surveys. The Sustainability Literacy Surveys aim to:
- Assess the sustainability literacy of students at the University of Tasmania by school/institute and year of study.
- Measure student learning by comparing results from tests conducted in consecutive years to identify progress and/or mastery of desired learning outcomes.
- Assist in evaluating the success of the University’s sustainability education initiatives over time and developing insight into how these initiatives could be improved.