Chapter 8: Skill Integration in Higher Education: Curriculum for Sustainability

This chapter will discuss the case of Centurion University of Technology and Management (CUTM), Odisha, one of India’s leading skills universities that provides a hands-on, practice-oriented, experience-based, interactive, and learning-centered educational environment. This chapter will further argue that by designing a skill integrated interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary curriculum, CUTM has built employable and entrepreneurial-minded manpower in order to contribute meaningfully towards a sustainable future. The various courses address Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) either directly or indirectly through a broad range of disciplines spanning from agriculture to industrial automation to governance. This chapter also highlights five social entrepreneurial initiatives under the brand name of ‘Gram Tarang’. Centurion University has established strong collaborations with industry, national and state governments, non-governmental organizations, and the local community for sustainable development, in line with SDG 17. The impact of Higher Education Institutions through their outreach activities, social entrepreneurship, and their attempts at enhancing critical thinking, creativity, and ethical values among students is also discussed. In the Indian context, these are crucial parameters that define sustainability (Agrawal & Kumar, 2018).