Integrating transformative learning approaches in higher education for sustainable development

The idea that education plays a crucial role in global development, particularly through the concepts of Higher Education for Sustainable Development (HESD) and Transformative Learning (TL), has gained significant attention in research, policy, and practice over the past few decades. Theoretically grounded in the principles of creative and deep learning, transformative learning involves the development of key competencies such as critical thinking, creativity, self-reflexivity, and individual awareness. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has evolved within international policy discussions as a key mechanism for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Shaped mostly by UNESCO’s initiatives, namely the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD, 2005–2014), and the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD (2015–2019), the ESD agenda has been introduced through five priority action areas, and the ESD for 2030 Framework (2020–2030), as part of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. International policy frameworks – particularly those framed by UNESCO – emphasize education’s potential to foster values, competences, and forms of agency required for sustainable and just societal transitions. However, ESD faces profound challenges, not only in developing competencies such as critical and adaptive pedagogies and participatory teaching methods but also in addressing structural barriers within higher education, particularly those imposed by neoliberal policies. As a response to these tensions, this paper proposes an analytical framework that integrates UNESCO’s five ESD priority action areas with Wals’s four dimensions of transformative learning (transcultural, transgenerational, transdisciplinary, and transgeographical). The framework provides a critical perspective to examine how higher education can move beyond normative or instrumental interpretations of sustainability towards more emancipatory, systemic, and transformative approaches. By using a hermeneutic and conceptual-framework analysis of UNESCO policy documents and scholarly literature on ESD and TL, the paper presents the evolution of ESD and identifies limitations in its current implementations. The paper outlines key challenges and offers policy perspectives for embedding critical transformative learning approaches in higher education environments.