Tawhid-Based Green Learning in Islamic Higher Education: An Insan Kamil Character Building

Abstract

This study aims to integrate green learning into the curriculum and proposes a holistic conceptual framework for Islamic higher education. This study used a qualitative-thematic approach and collected data through structured interviews with four informants from Islamic higher education institutions with green campus programs who were selected through snowball sampling. The results revealed that the green campus had been implemented in several ways, including the vision and governance of the campus environment, the appropriate waste management, research, and community service, and the learning process in several courses, either explicitly regulated in the written curriculum or implicitly taught in the hidden curriculum. One of the goals of implementing a green campus is to provide insight to students, lecturers, and other higher education communities about the importance of a sustainable environment through the learning process as a provision when living in a society. In addition, Islamic higher education has budgeted funds for green campus development, although it is limited because it strictly competes with funds allocations for other required campus development. For this reason, the researchers propose Tawhid-Based Green Learning, a conceptual framework for developing Islamic higher education responsive to the natural environment, which is reflected in the vision, mission, goals, learning materials, quality assurance, and outcomes. The concern for the environment based on tawhid (monotheism) integrated into the curriculum is also a form of human piety, and Islamic higher education has the task of producing graduates who have insan kamil personalities. As an implication, Islamic higher education must contribute to reducing the impact of global warming through tawhid-based green learning included in curriculum and lecture materials.