Education for sustainability – a prerequisite for post-crisis economic competitiveness with possible inference for Romania

Abstract

The need to integrate sustainability among the skills of specialists in economics and its accreditation for the university curricula was recognized in academic literature for over twenty years. Based on literature review the study outlines the idea that although there is significant interest in the concept of sustainability for economic education, particularly for the accounting domain, as demonstrated by the wide range of topics dealt with in a number of high quality journals, the dispersion is extremely high, the subjects are not treated consistently and the research impact is not reflected in practice. The paper presents then a documentary based research on the deepening the subjects included in the curricula of master’s programs in a number of European universities, central or collateral dealing with aspects of sustainability. In the last part of the article a study is depicted in order to present a picture of the possible involvement of Romanian students, graduated of economic studies, regarding the aspects of sustainability (environment, society and corporate responsibility), impacting the future evolution of the Romanian economy.

Keywords

• education
• sustainability
• economic competitiveness
• the accounting profession