Capacity Assessment Of Elementary School Teachers For Imparting Environment-Based Education
Keywords:
Environment, elementary school teachers, curriculum, environment-based education, capacity assessmentAbstract
Environment-based education (EBE) has gained significant attention amongst the world community, because the future of coming generations on earth will be dependent on conservation of environment for sustainable development. EBE has been adopted in many parts of the world but the most important actor in EBE is the teacher, who can integrate environmental context and concepts while
teaching. The present study was conducted for capacity assessment of teachers ofModel Colleges in Islamabad, Pakistan for imparting EBE. For this study, a sample of 200 teachers (both gender) comprising100 science teachers and 100 humanities teachers were randomly selected from all 17 Model Colleges in Islamabad (10 Boys and 7 Girls colleges). The data were collected with the help of a pre-tested questionnaire using an interview approach in order to assess the general awareness of teachers about environmental issues as a measure to assess their capacity to integrate the environmental perceptions and perspectives in teaching. The result shows a gender difference as females were found better aware of and more sensitive to environmental concerns than males. The resultalso indicated that humanities teachers with non-science academic background have no clear perceptions about environmental issues,
while science teachers have better understanding of the environmental aspects and expressed better understanding of the EBE concept. But teachers from humanities group were found more in favor of EBE than science teachers. On the basis of results, it is concluded that teachers lack capacity to deliver EBE. Therefore, it is suggested that teachers training programs should be developed for orientation to deliver EBE and practical activities integrating environmental aspects like training workshops, seminars,
conferences, discussions, debates must be organized for teachers as well as for the students as it will induce a positive attitudinal and behavioral change in the society
