IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i23p16080-d990844.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Key Challenges in 21st Century Learning: A Way Forward towards Sustainable Higher Educational Institutions

Author

Listed:
  • Shabir Hussain Khahro

    (College of Engineering, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia
    Educational Research Lab, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia)

  • Yasir Javed

    (College of Computer and Information Sciences, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia)

Abstract

Educational institutes always explore new ways and trends to improve teaching and ensure learning in the classroom, especially at the higher educational level. In this fast-growing, dynamic world, the field of information technology (IT) has made huge progress in different sectors, including the education sector. Initially, the educational process and stakeholders’ resistance made it challenging to implement new information-technology-based solutions in this key sector, but the recent pandemic made it easier at different stages. Universities must allow students to play an active role in developing pedagogy and share their ideas in order to meet the 21st century learning needs of today’s students. This paper investigates the key challenges in a 21st century education. An extensive literature review was carried out for this research, followed by targeted expert feedback. The paper concludes that universities must cope with enrollment, finance and student support concerns in addition to transitioning their on-campus programs to virtual settings. Faculty must be interactive, captivating, collaborative and thought-provoking. Students should have a choice in how they learn knowledge and display it in accordance with their requirements and preferences. Technology usage should be interesting, efficient and responsible to improve the learner’s experience. Students should also be taught how their education will affect their future and global impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Shabir Hussain Khahro & Yasir Javed, 2022. "Key Challenges in 21st Century Learning: A Way Forward towards Sustainable Higher Educational Institutions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-19, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:23:p:16080-:d:990844
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/16080/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/23/16080/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krishnamurthy, Sandeep, 2020. "The future of business education: A commentary in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 1-5.
    2. Marta Liesa-Orús & Cecilia Latorre-Cosculluela & Sandra Vázquez-Toledo & Verónica Sierra-Sánchez, 2020. "The Technological Challenge Facing Higher Education Professors: Perceptions of ICT Tools for Developing 21st Century Skills," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-14, July.
    3. José Pereira & Artur Graxinha, 2021. "New Challenges in Education: teaching future engineers for the Industrial Internet of the Things and Industry 4.0," Proceedings of Business and Management Conferences 12813385, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    4. Ursula Mello, 2022. "Centralized Admissions, Affirmative Action, and Access of Low-Income Students to Higher Education," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 166-197, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Walaa Al Husban, 2025. "The Impact of Integrating Sustainable Development Goals on Students’ Awareness and Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Case Study of Jordan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-24, March.
    2. Eman S. Abowardah & Wafa Labib & Hadeer Aboelnagah & Mohammad Nurunnabi, 2024. "Students’ Perception of Sustainable Development in Higher Education in Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-23, February.
    3. Tajul Rosli Shuib, 2025. "A Systematic Literature Review on the Historical Aspects and Implications of Psycho-Pedagogy for Teacher Education Perspectives," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(4), pages 6120-6133, April.
    4. Aftab Hameed Memon & Abdul Qadir Memon & Shabir Hussain Khahro & Yasir Javed, 2023. "Investigation of Project Delays: Towards a Sustainable Construction Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-17, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Núñez-Canal, Margarita & de Obesso, Mª de las Mercedes & Pérez-Rivero, Carlos Alberto, 2022. "New challenges in higher education: A study of the digital competence of educators in Covid times," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    2. de Obesso, Maria de las Mercedes & Núñez-Canal, Margarita & Pérez-Rivero, Carlos Alberto, 2023. "How do students perceive educators' digital competence in higher education?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    3. Margarita Núñez Canal & María Mercedes de Obesso & Carlos Alberto Pérez Rivera, 2024. "Does educators’ digital competence improve entrepreneurial students’ learning outcomes?," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 1707-1730, September.
    4. Ali Zackery & Joseph Amankwah-Amoah & Zahra Heidari Darani & Shiva Ghasemi, 2022. "COVID-19 Research in Business and Management: A Review and Future Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-32, August.
    5. Larisa Gorina & Marina Gordova & Irina Khristoforova & Lyudmila Sundeeva & Wadim Strielkowski, 2023. "Sustainable Education and Digitalization through the Prism of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-18, April.
    6. Chengliang Wang & Xiaojiao Chen & Teng Yu & Yidan Liu & Yuhui Jing, 2024. "Education reform and change driven by digital technology: a bibliometric study from a global perspective," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-17, December.
    7. Duryea, Suzanne & Ribas, Rafael P. & Sampaio, Breno & Sampaio, Gustavo R. & Trevisan, Giuseppe, 2023. "Who benefits from tuition-free, top-quality universities? Evidence from Brazil," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    8. Klein, Thilo & Aue, Robert & Ortega, Josué, 2024. "School choice with independent versus consolidated districts," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 170-205.
    9. Zheng, Xiaoying & Ruan, Chenhan & Zheng, Lei, 2021. "Money or love? The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer life goals and subjective well-being," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 626-633.
    10. Antonio Lerro & Francesco Santarsiero & Ciro Troise & Giovanni Schiuma & Daniela Carlucci, 2025. "Knowledge-based dimensions in Entrepreneurship Education (EE): modelling and practices," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-28, December.
    11. Kalgotra, Pankush & Gupta, Ashish & Sharda, Ramesh, 2021. "Pandemic information support lifecycle: Evidence from the evolution of mobile apps during COVID-19," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 540-559.
    12. Jinkyung Jenny Kim & Yeohyun Yoon & Eun-Jung Kim, 2021. "A Comparison of Faculty and Student Acceptance Behavior toward Learning Management Systems," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-16, August.
    13. Liu, Jingfang & Yue, Yang & Zhu, Junjian, 2025. "Unveiling paradoxes of access: How higher education expansion shapes intergenerational educational mobility in China's admission quota system," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    14. Dávid Máté Hargitai & Florina Pinzaru & Zoltán Veres, 2021. "Integrating Business Students’ E-Learning Preferences into Knowledge Management of Universities after the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-21, February.
    15. Bleemer, Zachary, 2023. "Affirmative action and its race-neutral alternatives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    16. Xiu-Kin Loh & Voon-Hsien Lee & Xiu-Ming Loh & Garry Wei-Han Tan & Keng-Boon Ooi & Yogesh K. Dwivedi, 2022. "The Dark Side of Mobile Learning via Social Media: How Bad Can It Get?," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 24(6), pages 1887-1904, December.
    17. Maria-Crina Radu & Carol Schnakovszky & Eugen Herghelegiu & Vlad-Andrei Ciubotariu & Ion Cristea, 2020. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Quality of Educational Process: A Student Survey," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-15, October.
    18. Johanna Andrea Navarro-Espinosa & Manuel Vaquero-Abellán & Alberto-Jesús Perea-Moreno & Gerardo Pedrós-Pérez & Pilar Aparicio-Martínez & Mª Pilar Martínez-Jiménez, 2021. "The Higher Education Sustainability before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Spanish and Ecuadorian Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-22, June.
    19. Silvia Farias-Gaytan & Ignacio Aguaded & Maria-Soledad Ramirez-Montoya, 2023. "Digital transformation and digital literacy in the context of complexity within higher education institutions: a systematic literature review," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    20. Vali Borimnejad & Sahar Dehyouri, 2022. "Content Analysis of the Economic Problems of Covid-19 Disease on Businesses: A Case Study of Tehran Province, Iran," Annals of Data Science, Springer, vol. 9(5), pages 1069-1083, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:23:p:16080-:d:990844. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.