Indonesian Ministries Establish Group to Drive 'Green Curriculum'

Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 1 Feb 10;

In order to introduce environmental awareness to school students that could be implemented in their real lives, the State Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of National Education joined together on Monday to establish an environmental education working group.

The two ministries have also signed off on a Memorandum of Understanding on environmental education, which has been established since June 2005.

“We (the State Ministry of Environment) want to stress the importance of preventive actions when it comes to the environment, because it is much better to prevent (problems) rather than have to find cures,” said State Minister for the Environment Gusti Muhammad Hatta.

Hatta added that the environmental education program was stipulated by the 2009 Environmental Protection and Management Law.

Gusti said that the ministry has already reached out to schools through its own initiative called Adiwiyata, an award program for green schools, and he was hoping to see an increase in the number of participants from year to year.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Muhammad Nuh said that there were around 55 million students in the country who were going to be potential champions for environmental awareness if they were introduced to it early in their education.

“It is very important that for us to strengthen our institutions, especially through environmental centers, which are still weak on some levels, so this new working group is aimed to make sure that we don’t only ‘sign’ a document here but also make a breakthrough with more practical steps,” Nuh said, adding that the country only has 32 environmental centers at present, which are based in universities.