The Star 26 Apr 10;
JOHOR BARU: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has proposed a new policy on environmental education to the Education Ministry to enable a more permanent and structured environmental syllabus for subjects in primary and secondary schools nationwide.
WWF senior environmental education programme officer Nor Shidawati Abdul Rashid said the policy would make environment education a vital part of the school syllabus by bringing it into the classroom.
“Under the current National Education Policy, environmental education is carried out on an ad hoc basis. Based on the proposed policy, we hope that elements of environmental education will be included in school subjects like English, Bahasa Malaysia, Geography and Biology,” she told reporters during an Earth Day seminar held at Sunway College Johor Baru.
Nor Shidawati said a study was carried out together with Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia to get evidence to lobby for the environmental education policy.
“We presented the draft to the Education Ministry last December,” she said, adding that she hoped the ministry would look into the draft by June this year.
She explained that teaching environmental education on a more permanent basis would be pivotal in spreading awareness on nature conservation especially to the future generations.
Nor Shidawati commended the college for its efforts in raising awareness for Earth Day which is observed annually on April 22.
“It is good to see institutes of higher learning and corporate bodies doing their part for nature and environmental conservation,” she said.
