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     Gobar times: Environment for Beginners

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green School

ECOLOGICAL   LITERACY
How should ‘environment’ be taught in schools?

The debate continues. GSP team presents the background...

  • ‘Environmental education was mandated as a compulsory subject in all schools across the country’ by the Supreme Court of India on November 22, 1991, following the filing of a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) by eminent environmental lawyer, M.C. Mehta.
  • Environmental education content was taught as apart of the curriculum of different subjects.
  • Environmentalists concerned with education in the country, voiced apprehensions that the apex court’s order is being shabbily implemented, if at all and a petition was submitted to Supreme Court of India once again.
  • On December 18, 2003, the concern for mainstreaming Environment Education was spelt out by the Supreme Court of India in its directive, making Environment Education compulsory or separate subject at all levels of education.
  • July 13, 2004, NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), was appointed the nodal agency to devise curriculum to be introduced at school level.
  • A National Focus Group (NFG) on Habitat and Learning (H&L) was constituted with prominent scientists, environmentalists and social scientists.
  • Since March 2007, CISCE (Council for Indian School Certificate Examination) conducts board examination for both the Xth and the XIIth on Environmental Education.
  • NCERT submitted a prayer to the Supreme Court to revert back to the infused model.

    •  Viewpoint of the Experts...

     Prof. Krishna Kumar, Director, NCERT
    We are introducing a fresh approach. The text books of all classses have been revised to plug the gaps which existed in the earlier model. The link between the different components of environment with real life has been lucidly explained. For example, the message that environment actually determines the lifestyle of a community including their food habits, livelihood, customs - has been conveyed in the Social Science textbook of Class VI, Chapter 1-Understanding Diversity, by taking Ladakh and Kerala as case studies. The difference in the lifestyle of the people living in these two regions help students to grasp the significance of this fact.

    This approach has been followed till Class VIII. For Classes IX to XII a separate issue based project guide is being provided. It is compulsory for the students to do project work which will be graded.

    Like environment education there are various other issues that are being lobbied for inclusion in the curriculum as a separate subject. Considering the load of the existing schools curriculum this is not possible.

    M C Mehta, Environmental Lawyer
    The Supreme Court’s Directive that makes environment education a separate compulsory subject is a landmark decision. I strongly believe that unless and until a discipline is recognised it remains on the sidelines with very few serious takers. If state does not recognise the subject how is the citizen supposed to realise its importance?

    We have been trying the infusion model to teach our children environment since 1991 and the results are in front of all of us.

    In 2001 Bhartiya Vidyapeeth Institute, Pune, conducted a comprehensive evaluation of over 1000 textbooks from various states in India. The objective of this exercise was to analyse the environmental content of the text, visuals, questions, activities, case studies, and their quality.

    The significant findings of the study are that while generally there is a fair amount of environmental content in the textbooks, the action links are missing.
    Gobar Times invites readers to share and seek information about Green Schools at
    eeu@cseindia.org or write to
    Environment Education Unit
    Centre for Science and Environment
    41, Tughlakabad Institutional Area,
    New Delhi-110062
    or e-mail: eeu@cseindia.org

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