Universities Ground Climate Courses Locally but Miss Decolonial Mark, Study Finds

What the UWI–Nairobi Climate Teaching Study Found

The University of the West Indies and the University of Nairobi have built climate courses firmly rooted in local priorities. What they have not yet done, new research suggests, is treat the communities most affected by climate change as equal partners in how that knowledge is produced and taught.

The study, by Shrika Madivanan, a master's student in the Erasmus Mundus MARIHE programme who recently interned at the International Association of Universities (IAU), measured climate-related teaching at the two institutions against four markers of decolonial climate pedagogy: community knowledge, locally situated teaching, climate justice framing and action, and South-South peer learning.

Both universities showed strong evidence of locally situated teaching and climate justice framing. UWI's courses focus on Small Island Developing States, link to Caribbean development priorities and reference reparatory justice and the disproportionate burdens on poor and vulnerable groups. Nairobi's Master of Science in Climate Change is anchored in Kenya's National Climate Change Response Strategy and Vision 2030 and covers the sociopolitical dimensions of the crisis — but does not explicitly frame climate change through colonial history or unequal historical responsibility.

The gaps were starker elsewhere. Neither university treats community members as co-teachers or knowledge partners in student learning, and direct evidence of South-South teaching collaboration — joint courses or shared knowledge production between Global South institutions — was hard to identify. The author argues this matters because higher education institutions help define what counts as legitimate climate knowledge worldwide.

Where Decolonial Climate Teaching Stumbles

Climate Colonialism and the Knowledge Hierarchy

Madivanan's underlying argument is that the climate crisis is being colonised: responsibility is displaced onto the countries that contributed least to it, while Global North actors keep the authority to define both problems and solutions. Higher education sits at the centre of that dynamic, shaping what students, researchers and decision makers treat as valid climate knowledge.

UWI: Justice-Framed, Community-Shallow

UWI's International School for Development Justice connects climate learning to Caribbean development and reparatory justice, scoring well on the study's justice markers. Community knowledge, however, was weak or unclear: materials mention community-based projects, but community members are not treated as teaching partners.

Nairobi: Locally Anchored, Historically Silent

The University of Nairobi's climate master's is firmly grounded in Kenya's national climate strategy and acknowledges the socio-political dimensions of the crisis. Yet it never frames climate change as a historical product of colonialism — one of the study's core markers — limiting the decolonial reach of the programme.

The Assessment Gap

The study also takes aim at how SDG 13 progress is measured. UNESCO and similar bodies, it argues, largely rely on institutional self-assessment and the presence of climate keywords rather than pedagogical substance or justice orientation. The author suggests the IAU SDG 13 Global Cluster could pioneer shared qualitative indicators and jointly taught Global South courses.

Madivanan acknowledges the limits: the research drew on public websites and a short survey, and would need syllabus-level analysis and direct interviews to go further.

How Universities and SDG 13 Bodies Could Close the Gap

For universities teaching climate change:

• Treat community members as co-teachers and sources of local and Indigenous knowledge, not only as research subjects — the study found this practice weak or unclear at both institutions.
• Frame climate change explicitly through colonial history and unequal responsibility; Nairobi's programme currently omits that dimension.

For university networks and assessment bodies:

• Support jointly taught courses between Global South universities — the study found no direct evidence of such teaching collaboration at UWI or Nairobi.
• Push qualitative indicators — climate justice framing, community knowledge, locally situated learning — beyond keyword-based self-assessment.