1. Overview and Strategic Context

As part of its long-term commitment to sustainability leadership, national development priorities, and global responsibility, the University of Bahrain has established a comprehensive, institution-wide Sustainability Literacy Programme aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This programme functions as the University's formal sustainability literacy assessment tool — a purpose-built, contextualised, and externally validated framework that covers all students and all academic and professional staff. It is designed to generate measurable, verifiable, and repeatable evidence of sustainability literacy, suitable for institutional reporting, quality assurance, and international benchmarking, including the QS Sustainability Rankings, the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, United Nations sustainability frameworks, and Bahrain's Economic Vision 2030.

Rather than relying on generic external literacy instruments that produce a single diagnostic snapshot, the University in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through GLOBALCAD has developed a programme that is locally contextualised, institutionally embedded, progressively structured, and internationally validated — providing a more rigorous and comprehensive measure of sustainability literacy at scale. Critically, the programme generates longitudinal, multi-level institutional data that is aggregated automatically through the University's learning management system, producing a richer and more auditable institutional literacy profile than any external diagnostic dashboard.

The programme is structurally embedded in the undergraduate curriculum through two compulsory English courses that every undergraduate student must complete regardless of college, programme, or discipline. SDG Level 1 is integrated into the first compulsory English course and SDG Level 2 into the second, creating a progressive two-stage sustainability literacy pathway that is architecturally inseparable from the degree structure. This curricular integration means that sustainability literacy assessment is not an optional add-on or a voluntary initiative — it is a structural requirement of undergraduate education at the University of Bahrain.

2. Programme Design Philosophy

The Sustainability Literacy Programme is built on three core principles:

• Universality — All students and all staff are assessed using a standardised framework, creating true institution-wide adoption. For students, this universality is guaranteed through structural integration in two compulsory English courses that form part of every undergraduate degree programme.
• Measurability — Sustainability literacy is evaluated through formal assessments with a defined pass threshold of 70%, generating quantifiable, auditable evidence of attainment that is aggregated at institutional level.
• Credibility — Programme development and certification are supported through collaboration with UNDP via GLOBALCAD, providing external validation that surpasses self-reported or awareness-only approaches.

Unlike awareness-only initiatives or standalone diagnostic tools that produce a single score at a single point in time, this programme establishes sustainability literacy as an assessed institutional competency — one that is locally relevant, globally aligned, progressively structured, independently verifiable, and tracked longitudinally across semesters and cohorts at institutional level.

3. Advantages of a Purpose-Built Institutional Framework

The University's decision to co-develop its own sustainability literacy assessment programme, rather than adopting a generic external instrument, reflects a deliberate strategic choice grounded in the following advantages:

The programme offers full contextualisation to Bahrain's national priorities, Economic Vision 2030, and institutional strategy, ensuring that sustainability literacy is grounded in the challenges and opportunities most relevant to students and staff. It provides progressive depth through a structured three-level pathway (Levels 1, 2, and 3), moving from foundational literacy to governance understanding to applied real-world impact — a scope that far exceeds a single diagnostic assessment.

The first two levels are delivered through a two-course compulsory sequence within the undergraduate curriculum, meaning that every student completes SDG Level 1 in their first compulsory English course and SDG Level 2 in their second, creating a progressive deepening of sustainability competency that is structurally embedded in the degree pathway rather than dependent on voluntary participation.

The programme includes formal certification co-branded with UNDP, providing a level of external validation and international credibility that strengthens institutional reporting across multiple ranking and benchmarking frameworks. It produces institutional-level performance data that is automatically aggregated through the University's learning management system, generating a comprehensive institutional literacy profile — disaggregated by college, by cohort, by staff category, and by semester — that can be tracked longitudinally and reported directly to senior leadership and external bodies. This institutional data architecture produces a far richer and more actionable evidence base than a single external diagnostic score.

4. Institutional Data Architecture and Sustainability Literacy Reporting

A defining feature of this programme is the automated institutional data aggregation system that underpins it. All individual assessment results are captured automatically through the University's learning management system at the point of completion. Because the assessments are embedded within two compulsory English courses that sit within the University's formal course registration and grading systems, the data capture is structurally guaranteed — every registered undergraduate generates a sustainability literacy data point as a natural product of their enrolment.

These individual records are then aggregated upward through a structured data architecture that enables reporting at every institutional level. At the individual level, each student and staff member receives a recorded score and, upon meeting the 70% threshold, an automatically generated certificate co-branded with UNDP and GLOBALCAD. At the course level, class-level pass rates and performance distributions are tracked per semester and made available to course coordinators and faculty. At the institutional level, university-wide pass rates, completion volumes, trend analyses, and disaggregated breakdowns are consolidated into a single institutional profile.

On the basis of this data architecture, the University produces a semesterly Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report that consolidates the following institutional-level metrics: total number of students and staff assessed, institutional pass rate at the 70% threshold for SDG Level 1 and SDG Level 2, performance disaggregated by college and by staff category, semester-on-semester trend analysis showing longitudinal improvement, and overall institutional sustainability literacy attainment expressed as a single institutional indicator.

This reporting mechanism provides the University with a comprehensive, auditable, and repeatable institutional dataset equivalent to — and more detailed than — any external literacy assessment dashboard. Because the data is generated from formally assessed modules embedded within compulsory courses, rather than from a voluntary diagnostic instrument, the institutional profile reflects demonstrated competency across the entire student body rather than a self-selected sample.

The Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report serves as the primary evidence base for the University's submissions to the QS Sustainability Rankings, THE Impact Rankings, and national quality assurance bodies, and is reviewed by senior leadership through the University's sustainability governance structures. A summary Institutional Sustainability Literacy Dashboard is appended to this report (see Appendix B), illustrating the format and scope of institutional-level data aggregation.

5. Structured Sustainability Literacy Assessment Framework

The University delivers sustainability literacy through a progressive three-level modular pathway. SDG Levels 1 and 2 serve as the core institutional sustainability literacy assessment tools for both students and staff, while SDG Level 3 extends learning into applied impact.

6. Assessment Methodology and Certification

SDG Levels 1 and 2 function explicitly as sustainability literacy assessment tools with a rigorous, standardised, and automated evaluation process that feeds directly into the institutional data architecture described in Section 4.

Assessment Design

Assessments are standardised online evaluations linked directly to defined learning outcomes and administered within the two compulsory English courses. A minimum 70% pass threshold is required for successful completion. Results are recorded automatically and aggregated at course, college, and institutional levels, enabling real-time monitoring and longitudinal tracking across semesters. Because the assessments sit within compulsory courses, every enrolled undergraduate is assessed — there is no self-selection bias, and institutional coverage is structurally complete.

Certification

Successful participants receive official certificates of completion, automatically generated upon achieving the required assessment threshold. Certificates are issued to both students and staff upon attaining a minimum pass score of 70% in the online assessments. Certificate generation is fully automated through the learning platform, ensuring consistency, integrity, and scalability at institutional level. All certificates carry the UOB and UNDP logos, providing verifiable external validation and international credibility.

7. Institution-Wide Coverage

Students

SDG Levels 1 and 2 are embedded within two compulsory English courses that form part of every undergraduate degree programme at the University of Bahrain. SDG Level 1 is integrated into the first compulsory English course and SDG Level 2 into the second, meaning that 100% of undergraduate students complete both stages of the sustainability literacy assessment as a mandatory component of their degree. This two-course structure ensures not only universal coverage but also progressive development — students first establish foundational sustainability literacy and then advance to governance, policy, and implementation understanding before graduation.

Because these courses are compulsory across all colleges and all programmes, the sustainability literacy assessment is not dependent on departmental decisions, faculty initiative, or student choice. It is a structural feature of the undergraduate curriculum that no student can bypass. Completion and pass rates are tracked by college and reported upward to institutional level, ensuring that every college's contribution to the University's sustainability literacy targets is visible and accountable. The student pathway guarantees that every graduate attains a verified, two-stage baseline of sustainability literacy.

Staff (Academic and Professional)

The same sustainability literacy assessment tool (SDG Levels 1 and 2) is applied to academic and professional staff, ensuring parity between student and staff competencies. The programme is delivered through structured sustainability training and professional development programmes, with identical assessment criteria and pass thresholds through Unit for Teaching and Learning (UTEL). Staff receive the same model of certification as students, and delivery and certification are conducted in collaboration with UNDP.

Staff completion data is aggregated alongside student data within the Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report, providing a unified institutional literacy profile that covers the entire university community. This design reflects the University's position that sustainability literacy is a shared institutional responsibility, not limited to students alone — a principle strongly valued in both the QS Sustainability and THE Impact ranking methodologies.

8. Measurable Institutional Performance: Evidence of Impact

The University systematically tracks institutional achievement rates across semesters to demonstrate measurable improvement and sustained performance at university level. All data presented below is automatically aggregated from the learning management system and represents institution-wide performance across all colleges and all students enrolled in the two compulsory English courses. Student performance is measured based on the proportion of students achieving the 70% pass threshold or above.

SDG Module 1: Institutional Pass Rates

In the 1st Semester of 2024–2025, 976 out of 1,882 students achieved the benchmark, representing an institutional pass rate of 51.9%. In the 2nd Semester of 2024–2025, performance rose significantly to 1,549 out of 1,990 students, or 77.9%. In the 1st Semester of 2025–2026, 1,510 out of 2,014 students met the threshold, sustaining a strong institutional pass rate of 75.0%.

SDG Module 2: Institutional Pass Rates

In the 2nd Semester of 2024–2025, 604 out of 1,081 students achieved the benchmark, representing an institutional pass rate of 55.9%. In the 1st Semester of 2025–2026, performance improved markedly to 686 out of 860 students, or 79.8%.

Institutional Summary Indicator

For the most recent reporting period (1st Semester 2025–2026), the University's headline institutional sustainability literacy rate stands at 75.0% for SDG Level 1 and 79.8% for SDG Level 2, representing the proportion of all assessed students who demonstrated verified sustainability competency at the 70% threshold. Because these assessments are administered within two compulsory courses, these figures represent the entire undergraduate cohort for each respective course — not a voluntary or self-selected sample.

These institutional indicators are comparable to — and more rigorous than — any score produced by an external diagnostic instrument, as they are based on formally assessed, multi-module, threshold-referenced evaluation of the full student body rather than a single-sitting awareness quiz administered to a voluntary subset.

Longitudinal Trend Summary

These results provide robust, quantifiable evidence that the University's Sustainability Literacy Programme is producing measurable improvements in institutional sustainability literacy over time. The upward trajectory in both modules confirms that the programme design, assessment framework, and institutional support structures are functioning effectively. This kind of longitudinal, institution-level, evidence-based performance data — drawn from compulsory courses with complete cohort coverage — is precisely the type of measurable impact sought by THE Impact Rankings, QS Sustainability Rankings, and national quality assurance frameworks, and represents a depth and rigour of institutional evidence that a single external diagnostic snapshot of a voluntary sample cannot provide.

9. Alignment with International and National Benchmarks

The programme is designed to serve multiple reporting and benchmarking needs simultaneously, reflecting the University's strategic alignment with both global and national frameworks. The Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report described in Section 4 functions as the primary evidence artefact for all of the following.

QS Sustainability Rankings

The programme demonstrates sustainability as a core institutional commitment through mandatory, assessed, and certified sustainability education embedded in two compulsory courses for all students and extended to all staff. Longitudinal institutional performance data and UNDP-validated certification provide verifiable evidence of educational impact and institutional responsibility. The institutional data architecture ensures that evidence is aggregated, auditable, and directly submittable.

THE Impact Rankings

The programme contributes directly to evidence for multiple SDG-specific submissions, particularly SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). The emphasis on measurable institutional outcomes, universal coverage through compulsory curricular integration, and real-world impact through SDG Level 3 aligns strongly with the THE methodology's focus on universities' tangible contributions to the SDGs. Institution-wide pass rates and longitudinal trends provide the quantitative evidence that THE assessors require.

United Nations Frameworks

The programme is aligned with the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and supports the broader UN emphasis on education as a driver of sustainable development. Collaboration with UNDP through GLOBALCAD ensures alignment with UN standards for sustainability capacity building, and the programme contributes to the goals of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Bahrain Economic Vision 2030 and National Priorities

The programme content is explicitly contextualised to Bahrain's national development priorities, including economic diversification, environmental sustainability, social cohesion, and governance reform as articulated in the Economic Vision 2030 and the Government Action Plan. By equipping all graduates and staff with sustainability literacy grounded in national context — delivered through a compulsory curricular pathway that ensures no graduate enters the workforce without verified sustainability competency — the University directly supports the Kingdom's human capital development and sustainability ambitions. The institutional data produced by the programme also supports evidence-based reporting to national quality assurance and accreditation bodies.

10. Beyond Individual SDGs: Holistic Sustainability Coverage

While specific SDGs are highlighted for reporting alignment, the programme content addresses sustainability holistically, covering the environmental, social, economic, and governance dimensions of sustainable development. The modules are intentionally designed to address SDG interlinkages rather than isolated goals, to reflect cross-cutting competencies such as systems thinking, responsible decision-making, and ethical leadership, and to support multiple SDGs simultaneously.

The programme demonstrates particularly strong and direct alignment with SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).

Together, the three levels position the Sustainability Literacy Programme as a comprehensive SDG competency pathway rather than a goal-specific initiative, with institutional-level data that evidences impact across the full breadth of the sustainability agenda.

11. Areas for Development and Recommendations

While institutional performance has improved substantially, earlier cohorts showed that 20–48% of students did not meet the benchmark in initial semesters. To sustain and build on these gains, the University recommends the following actions:

• Targeted Academic Support: Introducing structured remedial programmes for underperforming students, informed by college-level disaggregated data from the Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report, to ensure equitable opportunities for success.
• Early Identification Systems: Utilising the continuous assessment data captured through the institutional data architecture to identify and support at-risk students proactively before they fall below the threshold.
• Curriculum Differentiation: Adapting teaching materials to accommodate diverse learning needs and improve accessibility across student populations, guided by comparative college-level performance analysis.
• Active Learning Strategies: Incorporating experiential learning, case studies, and real-world applications to deepen understanding of SDGs and strengthen engagement.
• Continuous Monitoring and Evaluation: Establishing systematic review mechanisms through the semesterly Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report to track progress across cohorts and inform data-driven improvements aligned with institutional strategy and external benchmarking requirements.
• Staff Reporting Enhancement: Expanding the Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report to include more granular staff completion and performance data, ensuring full parity with the student data profile.

12. Conclusion

The University of Bahrain's Sustainability Literacy Programme represents a robust, comprehensive, and externally validated framework for assessing sustainability literacy at institutional scale. By developing a purpose-built, UNDP-collaborative, and fully assessed programme — embedded within two compulsory English courses that every undergraduate must complete — the University has established a model that is contextualised to national priorities, measurable through formal assessment, scalable across the entire institution, and credible through international partnership and co-branded certification.

The structural integration of sustainability literacy assessment within two mandatory courses means that institutional coverage is not aspirational but guaranteed — every undergraduate is assessed, every score is recorded, and every data point feeds into a university-wide institutional profile. This design eliminates the self-selection bias inherent in voluntary diagnostic instruments and ensures that the University's institutional sustainability literacy indicators reflect the full student body, not a willing subset.

The programme's institutional data architecture ensures that all assessment data is automatically captured, aggregated from individual to institutional level, and consolidated into a formal Institutional Sustainability Literacy Report that provides a richer, more rigorous, and more actionable evidence base than any external diagnostic dashboard. The University's headline institutional sustainability literacy rates — currently 75.0% at SDG Level 1 and 79.8% at SDG Level 2 — represent verified, threshold-referenced, longitudinally tracked institutional indicators based on complete cohort coverage that demonstrate genuine competency rather than awareness alone.

The evidence presented in this report demonstrates significant and sustained improvement in institutional sustainability literacy, strong institution-wide coverage of both students and staff, and meaningful alignment with the QS Sustainability Rankings, THE Impact Rankings, United Nations sustainability frameworks, and Bahrain's Economic Vision 2030. Continued focus on inclusive practices, targeted interventions, evidence-based curriculum development, and enhanced institutional reporting will further strengthen the University's position as a regional leader in sustainability education and institutional impact.

Appendix A: Sample Certificates

SDG Level 1 Certificate of Completion — Issued to students and staff upon achieving 70% or above in the SDG Level 1 assessment. Co-branded with University of Bahrain, UNDP, and GLOBALCAD logos. Signed by the President of the University of Bahrain.

SDG Level 2 Certificate of Completion — Issued to students and staff upon achieving 70% or above in the SDG Level 2 assessment. Co-branded with University of Bahrain, UNDP, and GLOBALCAD logos. Signed by the President of the University of Bahrain.