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Beyond trees and tigers
Source: The Hindu, Date: , 2013
As India’s
sustainability issues grow more complex with modernisation, one of the main
challenges facing environmental educators is how to impart these difficult
concepts to children and how to make sure they care about them beyond the test
score. Environmental
education groups and officials from the National Council of Educational
Research and Training (NCERT) and the Ministry of Environment and Forests
(MoEF) were recently brought together in a conference to address “those
emerging trends and dynamicity changes around us”. The event
was organised by Toxics Link, an NGO in the environment sector which hoped that
such interactions would improve the quality and effectiveness of children’s
eco-education. “Environment has come a long way of time when it was the hostage
of terms like trees, tigers and research conservation,” the release stated.
 While
children seem to easily understand the importance of wildlife conservation,
abstract concepts like the negative effects of toxic chemicals upon those
animals and the environment can be more difficult for them to grasp, said
Kartikeya V. Sarabhai, the founder director of the Centre for Environment
Education (CEE). But it is
important to teach children these challenging concepts early on, he added.
“School children’s impact on their parents and what happens in their
neighbourhoods should not be dismissed.” The fast
pace of India’s industrialisation and the environmental problems that arise
from it have also proven intimidating to teachers, who might feel ill-prepared
to teach on the subject, Mr. Sarabhai said. Teachers should view their role as
facilitators, he said, and become comfortable saying to students “I don’t
know”. India
embraced environmental education earlier than many nations, with the National
Policy on Education naming environmental education as one of ten core areas of
education in 1986. In 2005, schools moved from teaching environmental education
as a standalone subject to an “infusion model” designed to incorporate aspects
of environmental education all subject areas. The infusion
approach “has led to huge problems in practicality”, B.M.S. Rathore, Joint
Secretary of MoEF, said. “How do we get meaning into that approach? Then, how
do you evaluate it?” One key aim
is to avoid the practice common to many subject areas: children memorising
information solely to do well on tests, said Professor Jaishree Sharma, NCERT
head. Though the practice was common to many subjects, she said it went against
the true aim of environmental education. “Children when they grow up, they
really are not practicing it,” she said. Beyond consciousness-raising to bring
about more sustainable development in the future, “we aim to bring about
habitual changes in children”.
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