ENHANCEMENT OF AWARENESS LEVEL ON SDGS THROUGH AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAM

Abstract

The 2030 Agenda emphasizes the significance of contribution by all actors including university students, as agent of changes in undertaking urgent actions. However, awareness on the concept of SDGs among university students is considerably at an average level. An alternative way to tackle this is by embedding the goals into a 2-week student exchange program, i.e., UTeM Winter School 2024 (UWINS 2024), which outlines various activities mapped to five different SDGs. SDG 2 and SDG 4 were mapped to an educational farm tour and an educational CSR program with under-enrolled primary school students, respectively. Meanwhile, both SDG 13 and SDG 14 were mapped to a beach clean-up program that also featured a demonstration of water quality monitoring robot. Finally, participation among 17 international and 5 local students directly reflects SDG 17. The level of awareness on these SDGs with respect to their corresponding activities was assessed through a set of five-point Likert scale questionnaire among all participants. 81.8% of the respondents agree that the farm tour has improved their awareness level on the importance of food security (SDG 2). 95.4% of the respondents agree that the school-based CSR program has raised their awareness level on the importance of ensuring quality education (SDG 4). 91% of the respondents agree that the beach clean-up program, together with water monitoring robot demonstration, has levelled up their awareness on the urgency of combating climate change (SDG 13). Through the same program, all respondents totally agree that their awareness level on the importance of conserving marine life (SDG 14) has been enhanced too. Finally, all respondents also totally agree that UWINS 2024 has improved their awareness level on the importance of having international partnership / networks (SDG 17).