Environment education entails sensitizing people about the process of, and threats to the environment so that they can make informed and responsible lifestyle choices. Environment education leads to the success of larger policies aimed at biodiversity conservation, resource management and climate action. It is commonly believed that childhood provides a wet clay for molding the individual, making primary and secondary schooling important milestones for instilling pro-environment consciousness among people. The endurance of exploitative socio-economic systems owes to education programs that pitted humans and nature as opponents. The advent of a pro-Earth consciousness has been resurrected in principle yet the callousness prevails implicitly.
The Supreme Court of India made ‘Environmental Education (EE) compulsory in schools and colleges with the promulgation of the National Policy of Education (NPE) 1986 (modified in 1992), in which Protection of the Environment is stated as a common core around which a National Curriculum Framework (NCF) would be woven’. Largely, there are two methods of introducing an environmental curriculum. One is by introducing it as a separate discipline, and the second is by infusing it with existing subjects. At the primary and secondary education levels, India has largely adopted the latter. Proponents of infused approach draw attention to merits like reducing the burden on children and interdisciplinary thinking. The NPE 1986, NCFSE, 2000 and NCF 2005 gave a thrust to environmental education in India. Following these policies, Environmental Education(EE) at the elementary level has been integrated with language and mathematics in grades 1st and 2nd, while from 3rd-5th standard Environmental Science is a separate subject. From middle school onwards EE is integrated with the different disciplines that students opt for. NEP 2022 aspires for a holistic education system. Equitable and qualitative enhancement of not just cognitive, but moral, emotional and social faculties as well. It envisages a curriculum that will, among other aspects, strengthen harmony with the world. Commitment to indigenous knowledge system and SDG, which NEP 2020 envisages, does not amount to a relevant EE program.
The Indian government had spent Rs. 142.32 crores between 2017-19 towards the Environment Education, Awareness and Training scheme. Under the National Green Corps Program scheme, 1.6 lakh eco-clubs were created in schools and colleges. The National Nature Camping Program entailed organizing nature camps for school students in National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries. Additionally, capacity building programs targeting teachers and students for training in biodiversity, conservation, pollution and waste management, were also part of the initiative. The Union Budget 2022-23 saw an allocation of Rs. 78.62 crores for ‘environment knowledge and capacity building’. This umbrella scheme entails two subprograms- Forest Training and Capacity Building; and Eco Task Force. However, the budget allocation for environmental education, awareness and training plunged from Rs 77.13 crore in 2021-22 to Rs. 58 crores in 2022-23.
Limited budget and policy orientation is a major barrier to EE and stems from a lack of societal importance accorded to it. Students have still not fathomed the necessity of EE. Pro-environment mass actions at the school/college level are reduced to poster making, slogan writing and tree planting. Myopic attitudes toward EE at the level of primary schooling hinder traction towards future research in this domain.
A major part of the solution lies in re-orientating the approach to EE. A 2021 research paper titled ‘Environmental Education In Context Of New Education Policy 2020’ by Sujata Kumari suggests updating pedagogical and syllabus patterns. For instance, many textbooks continue portraying Ozone Layer depletion as a major environmental concern even though post ratification of the Montreal protocol in 1987, the Ozone Layer over Antarctica has been closing. The author argues that more pertinent are environmental issues of national/local nature. This approach may evoke a personal response within the students as it is easier to get concerned about something that can be associated with. Additionally, while it is important for a student sitting in Delhi to know about the threat to tiger/elephant/ rhinoceros, they may not be able to contribute directly to the conservation of these far away threatened species. India is marked by abundant biodiversity of life forms; a pedagogy that awakens a neighborhood specific environment action should be aimed at.
A 2017 report titled Ways to Upscale Environment Education in India by Earth day Network, India lays out this approach with coherent examples- ‘Hands-on activities to study what is in your vicinity, rather than something imagined, is far more effective a road to comprehension……it makes more sense to teach climate change by focussing on rising ocean waters in coastal areas than teaching them the same subject by focussing on the melting glaciers in faraway mountain ranges, and vice-versa’.
We may seek inspiration from government and non-government programmes that have ventured in the direction of student-oriented EE.
- The Green School Program, under the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, encouraged students to take an audit of their school’s green behavior and received suggestions for improving their green standing. Following the pandemic, an online audit called ‘Audit@home’ was initiated.
- Teach for Green, an NGO in New Delhi taught government school students how to make self-built solar lamps. The founders believed that merely donating solar lamps to these children is not sufficient, for they won’t know how to fix it in case it breaks.
- Before the institutionalization of infused approach, Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi Environmental Education Centre (USNEEC), Almora treated a nearby village as their ground for explaining ecological balance.
- Centre for Environment Education Himalaya (CEE-H) and the Commonwealth of Learning offered a ‘green teacher diploma’ to educators. This knowledge regarding teaching environmental concepts in a classroom setting and through low-cost outdoor activities was imparted.
Ignoring environmental degradation undermines human development. The lack of pro-environment psych among the youth can be solved by re-centering EE around the student. Growing ‘Nature Deficient Disorder’, especially amongst urban students living in concrete jungles necessitates exposure to nature. Inversely students residing in bio-diversity abundant areas may be exposed to the resources in a new way. A micro-level perspective that tells students the problems which they can meaningfully solve at their own or community level. Additionally, engagement in EE through projects/clubs should be incentivized by additional grade points. Civil society and family are important agents for strengthening the pro-environment will of students.