Environmental Education in the Preparation of Students of Tourism and Finance and Management in the Czech Republic

• Main Authors: Pavel Krpálek, Kateřina Berková, Katarína Krpálková Krelová, Andrea Kubišová, Dagmar Frendlovská, Stanislav Szabo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-08-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: environmental education; tourism; finance and management; study programmes; work placement; career-oriented higher education institution
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/17/6736

Higher education includes space for creating cross-cutting competence profiles of future professionals aimed at addressing key sustainability challenges in increasingly complex and global contexts. The research seeks to identify and evaluate the level of engagement in environmental education in study programmes at a career-oriented higher education institution in the Czech Republic. The research sample consisted of 3680 students of the Tourism and Finance and Management study programmes of the College of Polytechnics Jihlava, who participated in work placements in the course of their studies. An educational analysis was applied for qualitative research and evaluation of the level of implementation of the environmental educational component. Quantitative research was based on a questionnaire method, with tests to verify hypotheses being performed at a significance level of 5%. It was proven that the inclusion of an environmental component was influenced by the study programme. This influence was confirmed for the Tourism study programme, while for Finance and Management it was not verified. The environmental component in the Tourism study programme is developed through work placements; however, with regards to major study subjects taught, qualitative research analysing the inclusion of environmental aspects in these subjects proved the opposite. The Finance and Management study programme does not currently use the potential for environmental education development. The research revealed certain drawbacks and uncovered the potential to streamline environmental education at the career-oriented higher education institution.