This qualitative case study examines how sustainable development policies are implemented in colleges of education in South Western Nigeria, with particular attention to curriculum integration, infrastructure development, and community engagement. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 purposively selected academic staff across six institutions, supplemented by policy document analysis. The findings reveal partial and fragmented policy implementation characterized by three interrelated deficits: inadequate funding (less than 5% of institutional budgets allocated to sustainability in four of the six colleges), limited staff awareness of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), and weak governance structures lacking dedicated oversight mechanisms. Building on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier, 1988) and the Triple Bottom Line model (Elkington, 1997), the study proposes a context-specific policy implementation framework that integrates curriculum reform, mandatory staff training, governance restructuring, and formalized stakeholder partnerships. The framework is aligned with SDG 4 and Nigeria's National Policy on Education (FRN, 2013) and is intended to equip colleges of education to produce teachers capable of addressing Nigeria's complex socio-economic and environmental sustainability challenges.
Muideen Oladeji Salami (2026) studied this question.