A more effective spreading of environmental awareness among primary school children is the aim of this week's Environmental Education Workshop which was launched yesterday at the Main Street Plaza Hotel, Georgetown.
Some 56 Level Three teachers from around the country will take part in the sessions which aim to engage them in the modification and preparation of environmental education material and to expose them to the strategies necessary in effective environmental education.
"This is a great advance in the efforts of the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to promote environmental education throughout our country," declared Minister of Agriculture and Chairman of the EPA board, Navin Chandarpal.
"If we can develop a curriculum that will allow us to engage our students in an interaction with nature, we will be doing a lot of good for our young students and therefore for future generations and for the country," he continued.
Improving environmental education in primary schools: Participants of this week's Environmental Education Week, sponsored by the EPA, the Ministry of Education and UNDP, at the launching ceremony yesterday.
He also hoped that the curriculum would not concentrate too much on the technical side of environmental education but would rather instill in children an appreciation of the value and purpose of nature. "We need to reach out to all the levels," he said.
Curriculum Development Specialist at the Ministry of Education, Mohandatt Goolsarran, outlined the programme which will see teachers engaged in a number of activities and discussions over the week. They will then take a prototype curriculum for experimentation over the next two terms of the school year.
In August of next year the group will reconvene to finalise the curriculum which will be introduced in the wider education system. It is hoped that the new models will then be spread to all ages in the system.
Representing the EPA, Dr Rovin Deodat was hopeful that the workshop would be an effective start to instilling awareness of the environment in children across the country through their school education, noting that despite an active awareness programme the effects had not been entirely satisfactory.
Last year, countrywide orientation workshops were initiated in all ten regions.
"We asked the regions to identify the major environmental topics that were either problematic or had potential for development," he said. These series of recommendations were intended to lead to the emergence of environmental management plans for each region, he explained. It was also hoped that "immediately after these recommendations were identified that we would have an environmental committee within each region to address those issues.
"That did not happen," he said, explaining that many "felt the EPA was asking the regions to do their work for them.
"Whilst of course it's the opposite," he retorted. "It's the job of the region. You have to get a broad-based committee together."
Looking forward to the workshop ahead he stated that in order to finalise the new modules it was crucial to have "the real experts" involved (i.e. the teachers) to thrash out what is practical and workable.
"If you bring the energy and the ideas to these modules, then we will all be richer for it," he told the participants.
"The EPA is eager to stay on board and give as much support and assistance as we can," he concluded.