Indonesian Vocational Educators’ Cognition and Behavior towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Qualitative Study

Achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) changes many aspects of environmental, socio-cultural, and economic dimensions. Therefore, industry–government–university synergy is a mandatory action to accomplish the 2030 agenda, and, undebatably, vocational education also has a prominent role. This study’s purpose is to investigate the cognition and behavior of lecturers toward SDGs in daily life, leading to a potential contribution to student awareness of global issues. Lecturers who have solid interaction with their students were selected as part of Indonesia’s Tri Dharma of higher education. A qualitative study with in-depth semi-structured interviews was conducted with a total of six lecturers from three different universities, and the next step, data analysis, was coded by MAXQDA 2020. The outcomes indicate that all lecturers have a general understanding of sustainable development goals. The fourth item (Quality Education) is the most mentioned for cognition and behavior, followed by Responsible Consumption and Production in the second position. Each person has a priority item for applying SDGs to their life as a consequence of their experience, point of view, and interest. The student is the main prospect to make a better world if we look at big picture.