Abstract: In examining opportunities to learn environmental education at the school and classroom level, we were interested in ascertaining how teachers in primary schools have made sense of the new policy of integrating environmental education in the various learning areas. The researchers wished to find out how workable the policy was in one school context, and what its consequences were in terms of providing better opportunities for learners. Indeed the case of Sechaba Primary has provided some insights into these questions. We now know how some schools have taken the new policy and made it work for them. They have developed their own local environmental policy, which served as a basis for mobilising and organising resources for learning and teaching environmental education at the school. It is this localised policy that seemed important in driving the integration of the environment into the curriculum at Sechaba Primary. Furthermore, the local policy created a platform for mobilising the intellectual and material resources for the integration of environmental education at the school. For us, the most important lesson coming out of this research therefore is the need for local school actors to take the initiative and be the agents of change. Agency and teacher leadership have proved to be cornerstones of the success story of the integration of environmental education at Sechaba Primary. There is, however, still a long way to go in terms of reaching the conceptual depths of the integration and extended participation of learners in environmental education, as the case of Sechaba Primary has illustrated. The lessons learned from the Sechaba Primary case would be applicable in schools that have taken environmental education as seriously as Sechaba Primary has done.
Mobil →
