Sustainability literacy apart from being an imminent need in the current global context cements the foundations of proactivity in its definition of being “the knowledge, skills and mindsets that allow individuals to become deeply committed to building a sustainable future and assisting in making informed and effective decisions to this end” (UNSDG, 2023). At a time when the role of humanities and social sciences education is questioned in Sri Lanka with funding as the premise where comparisons are constantly made in relation to larger globally commercialised capitalist models of economic productivity, the concept of sustainability literacy both overtly and subtly establishes the relevance of humanities and social sciences education in the Sri Lankan tertiary setting by virtue of its definition. To make informed and effective decisions in the committed building of a sustainable future centers on the role of the social being which is the representation of the basic element of society wherein such decisions are made by and for the benefit of society. The humanities and social sciences play a pivotal role in sustainability literacy especially at times of global uncertainty, and as such stands as the basis of the thematic justification of the 10th Ruhuna University International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences 2024.
RUICHSS 2024 serves as the platform for the collective dissemination of scientific knowledge under ten curated trajectories that encompass the diversely complex sphere of humanities and social sciences research with the central aim of outreach in aiding the scientifically oriented effective decision-making process as called for by sustainability literacy.
The conference is jointly organised by the Department of English Language Teaching and the Department of English and Linguistics on behalf of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.