Prasar Bharati Member moots Environmental Education Movement

Bhopal, Apr 22 (UNI) Prasar Bharati Member Sunil Kapoor today highlighted the need for a vigorous National Environmental Education Movement in India for a sustainable society.

''It should be an enduring vision of social and environmental justice that influences awareness today. Despite widespread water scarcity, deforestation, chaotic cities, pollution and global warming having transformed into everyday realities, environment education in schools and colleges is limited in content and reach,'' he said in a report entitled 'Environment Education for Sustainable Future'.

Claiming that a ''sudden information overload'' on environment conservation had left most well-intentioned school managements perplexed, Dr Kapoor added that -- as a result of Supreme Court directives -- most urban schools and colleges jumped on the green bandwagon, introducing environment education as an academic subject or as an extracurricular activity.

''Environment activists caution against haphazard and thoughtless introduction of environment education and advocate the creation of a non-government supervisory organisation, comprising reputed environmentalists and educationists, to draw up a proper environment curriculum and monitor its implementation,'' he explained.

The reality is that environmental issues cannot be taught in isolation as a 'science' or 'arts' subject. They are intimately connected with our social, political and economic policies.

Unfortunately, awareness of the environment and pollution as a holistic discipline is lacking in most curricula, Dr Kapoor felt.

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