by Munyaradzi Chenje
Providing effective environmental education in southern Africa seems to be a multiple choice quiz for educators, curriculum developers and environmentalists in the region.
Answers to the effective environmental education are deceptively obvious but appear complex to implement.
The questions centre on issues such as the definition of environmental education, national policies, content, relevance of books and other materials, target audience and approach, language, funding, role of traditional knowledge and culture, and regional co-operation. Other questions are on links between theory, practice and field trips, and overloading of the curriculum.
While countries in southern Africa have done their homework on these and other related issues, none seems to have all the answers. The countries lack, among other things, well-trained environmental educators, materials and a holistic approach to the management of resources and administration of sectoral environmental education.
Southern African educators and environmentalists are now comparing notes to see whether their solutions to environmental education match.
One country wants to fail or others in the region to do so because southern Africa shares common resources, and suffers from common environmental problems such as land degradation, pollution, natural disasters and loss of biological diversity.
Environmental educators acknowledge that education helps correct these problems and put people in the region back in touch with the environment and natural resources on which they depend. Solution to many of the environmental problems in any country lie in the co-operation of all countries in the region.
“In a sense, we stand together at Ground Zero of southern Africa’s environmental future,” Namibian Deputy Education Minister B. Wentworth told participants to a one-week workshop on environmental education for the youth held in Windhoek in mid-March.
The workshop, organised by the Southern African Development Community’s Environment and Land Management Sector (SADC ELMS), brought together about 60 educators, curriculum developers and environmentalists from the 11 southern African countries, Kenya, United Kingdom, Sweden and India.
One of its aims was to give participants an opportunity to share experiences with colleagues in the region and others from further afield. But what are the objectives of environmental education or EE, as it is popularly called?
“EE aims at getting knowledge that enhances behaviours through changed attitudes to acquire desired practices or skills on the environment,” said Bernard Bakobi, principal environmental education officer with Tanzania’s National Environment Management Council.
The drive for such education in the region is designed to raise environmental awareness among southern Africans. Its other objective is to ensure that development not only helps meet society’s needs of today but tomorrow’s as well without putting the needs of future generations at risk.
EE includes components of conservation, of nature study and environmental study. It is, however, not the same as any of these subjects because it also incorporates the interactions of people with their environment.
Deputy Minister Wentworth said while environmental education is crucial, it should not be imposed upon the people.
“It will serve no purpose, nor will it be in the long run sustainable, to arrive at solutions to environmental threats which must be imposed on the people by an informed, benign elite,” he said.
“Environmental education must extend to and be informed by civic education.”
Namibia is one of a few countries in the region that has made great strides in environmental education, publishing relevant books and introducing courses aimed at different levels of the school system. It is one of a few countries in the world with an environmental clause in its constitution. Its Green Plan, first submitted at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, has been updated and is now before Cabinet for approval.
“It (plan) recognises education as an important vehicle in trying to achieve the aim of sustainable use of natural resources,” said Brian Jones of the Namibian Environmental Affairs directorate. “Environmental education is seen as one of the essential instruments for empowering individuals and communities to take meaningful action and positively shape the future of their own environment.”
Namibian success notwithstanding, a SADC ELMS consultancy report says although countries in the region have great interest in environmental education, there is “confusion on all levels concerning the scope of environmental education.”
A communique issued at the end of the Windhoek workshop noted the “lack of policy on EE in most of the countries in the SADC region.” It also noted that there is critical inadequacy of teaching and learning materials to effectively carry out EE in southern Africa.
The workshop participants recommended, among other things, that for environmental education to have maximum support among people in southern Africa, a deliberate policy on it should be implemented.
“This policy would facilitate, guide, enable and monitor EE activities,” said one of the recommendations.
“Policy would facilitate the infusion of EE facets in the formal, non-formal and informal education at all levels.”
They also emphasised the need to search for traditional knowledge, cultural practices and beliefs for inclusion in the formal, non-formal and informal systems of education. SADC ELMS was tasked to facilitate the necessary research.
The workshop participants have given themselves a tough but crucial homework, which includes the building of strong networks and the establishment of a regional environmental education centre. Judging from the tasks they have set for themselves, it will be at least a number of years before the class that met in Windhoek completes its assignment and graduate. (SARDC)
