Sustainability integration in engineering education: A capability-based curriculum analysis

Engineering programmes are increasingly expected to prepare graduates who can respond to sustainability challenges through ethical responsibility, contextual decision making, and awareness of environmental and societal impacts. However, evidence of coherent curriculum-wide integration of sustainability-related graduate attributes remains uneven, particularly in practice-oriented engineering programmes. This single-institution qualitative case study examines how sustainability-related graduate attributes are embedded within the documented curriculum of a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering at a South African university. Guided by a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning perspective, the study analyses programme and module descriptors, graduate attribute mappings, assessment briefs, rubrics, and curriculum review documentation through a capability-based framework spanning five dimensions: (1) sustainability intent, (2) curriculum integration, (3) graduate attribute alignment, (4) assessment alignment and evidence generation, and (5) vertical progression. The findings indicate strong sustainability intent, expressed mainly through professional responsibility, safety, efficiency, and contextual problem solving. Curriculum integration and graduate attribute alignment are present but uneven, with stronger visibility in applied and project-based components than in the technical core. Assessment alignment and vertical progression are weaker, as sustainability-related capabilities are seldom made explicit in rubric criteria, feedback processes, or developmental sequencing across levels. The study contributes a programme-level analytical approach for examining how sustainability functions within formal curriculum documentation and identifies assessment and progression as strategic leverage points for strengthening sustainability integration in accreditation-informed higher education contexts.