Sustainability teaching at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava

This paper deals with the evolution of teaching, supporting sustainability at VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic (VSB-TUO). The University is a technical and economic institution of higher education, the principal task of which is the provision of higher education based on free and internationally oriented research. In former Czechoslovakia, as one of the socialist countries, environmental protection was not at the top of the agenda. After democratic changes in 1989 the University started to develop a number of environmental study courses, which were consequently followed by preventative and proactive tools for building of the more sustainable development pathways. The text also describes active international cooperation of VSB - TUO within Baltic University Programme as an example of very successful sustainability education in Central and Eastern Europe. The next part is devoted to the comparison of employability of our students versus four comparable Czech public universities. Summary shows the important role of universities in general and underlines the importance of VSB – TUO for regional sustainable development. New orientation of industry in currently highly polluted region must definitely head towards less material and energy intensive, highly innovative production with a strong environmental accent. The students from all our environmentally oriented study branches get a significant deal of sustainability-supporting tools and practices, which can be then implemented in their work in industry, local government administration or consultancy services and, of course, last but not least in their private lives.