Patterns, Challenges, and Enablers in ESD Competency Assessment: A Thematic Analysis of Subject Matter Experts' Perspectives

Higher education assessment unevenly implements the embedding of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) competencies across academic disciplines. Faculty perceptions of how ESD competencies are assessed, what barriers impede integration, and what practices constitute enabling conditions remain underexplored in the Malaysian context. This study presents a qualitative thematic analysis—following Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phase inductive, semantic, and realist framework—of six faculty group synthesis documents produced during an ESD competency mapping workshop at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). Forty course leaders across Management and Business, Social Sciences, and Science and Technology clusters participated. Fourteen initial codes were generated and organised into four themes: (1) The Rubric Gap — a systematic deficiency in rubric descriptors as the principal structural impediment; (2) Assessment Beyond the Classroom — genuine, transformative assessment innovations encompassing community engagement, work-based, and reflective designs; (3) The Student Readiness Deficit — ongoing faculty apprehension regarding students' higher-order thinking and integrative learning abilities; Navigating the Ecosystem – faculty discretion in overseeing external partner relationships, institutional alignment, and dissemination of best practices. The overarching finding is that faculty are actively innovating ESD assessment practice despite systemic constraints, yet sustainable integration depends on foundational rubric reform and institution-wide calibration. The study contributes a replicable thematic analysis protocol for ESD competency auditing and identifies concrete institutional priorities for Malaysian higher education institutions implementing MQF 2024 VBE mandates.