How effective is Environmental Education in our country?

With the rising concerns on climate change and global warming, the need for environmental education has gained significant importance today. Therefore, in the year 2007, Environmental Education was incorporated in the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations syllabus. Indeed, the initiative was praiseworthy; however, its execution has not achieved its benchmarks. After 3 years of its implementation, the subject has not made quite an impact on the younger generation.

If we look at our education system, we will see that it lays more emphasis on examinations and scoring good marks. In this situation, it is doubtful whether the introduction of a subject like Environmental Education will yield any result. More importantly, the textbooks for the subject do not contain the latest updates. Most of these textbooks give a bird’s eye view of various environmental issues like carbon credits and emerging concepts related to pollution. Besides, more and more technical jargon and chunks of repetitive text can barely capture the students’ interest in the subject.

Will a simple list of India’s biodiversity hotspots or non-specific chapters on pollution make students understand the potential threats to the environment? Undoubtedly, all these textbooks don’t capture the day to day realities of the climate issue and most teachers don’t have technical knowledge about the present environmental issues.

Now the question arises as to how to generate the students’ interest in the subject. It would be better to give students a hands-on experience by teaching them how to make their school campuses clean and green. Showing them various documentaries and movies on environmental issues and letting them work with NGOs are some positive moves in this regard. Most importantly, the mark of this subject should be considered at the board examination so that students can pay more attention to the subject.