Teachers from universities in Central Asia took part in training focused on sustainability
10.11.2025
The Faculty of European Studies, in cooperation with the Faculty of Horticulture and Landscape Engineering, hosted a group of thirteen teachers from ten universities in Central Asia from November 3 to 6. In the premises of the SPU Environmental Centre on Hospodárska Street, they learned how to integrate sustainability into their courses and curricula.
Experts from SPU and the Danube University Krems in Austria trained teachers and two university rectors from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan to adopt a new approach to teaching that promotes sustainability. “At the beginning, they attended a lecture on the Sustainable Development Goals, then chose one of their subjects into which they would like to incorporate sustainability and assessed its current state. Afterwards, they learned about various educational methods that can help students better understand the issue. Some of these methods they even tried out themselves,” explained Associate Professor Tatiana Kaletová from the Faculty of Horticulture and Landscape Engineering (FZKI).
The teachers worked in groups, exchanged experiences, and provided feedback on each other’s proposals. At the end, each participant presented a plan for an updated version of the course they had chosen at the beginning. “They learned how to do it themselves, so they will now be able to train their colleagues back home. Our task, besides training teachers, is also to revise the curricula and courses of the participating universities. The goal is to ensure that universities in these countries become local leaders in sustainability,” emphasized T. Kaletová.
The four-day event was part of the international project Green Deal for Central Asian Universities, No. 101179245 co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education program: https://gdcau.eu/. The project, involving 13 universities from eight countries including SPU in Nitra, is led by Constructor University in Bremen, Germany. At the Faculty of European Studies and Regional Development, the project is coordinated by Prof. JUDr. Lucia Palšová, PhD.
