Seeking sustainability on service learning projects

Abstract

Service-learning courses across disciplines in higher education have gained tremendous attention among students where they are engaged in complex and oftentimes timeintensive activities aimed at assisting the community. This gives students an opportunity to develop competencies essential for their career. These projects expose students to practical learning opportunities outside a classroom setting. However, there are several challenges associated with these projects which question the sustainability of the same. This study identifies issues like depth of interaction between service providers and the recipients leading to execution of some undesirable projects, effects of involving multidisciplinary students in group work and their inability to cope with the requirements and students focus on results and GPA rather than service to the community. All these effects are further strained by the limitation of time where merely one semester of involvement expects the student to inculcate the feeling of community service along with the learning. The finding of the study exposes the flaw in the system and suggests a path towards attaining sustainability by addressing the above mentioned problems.