The majority of the teachers thought it important to teach environmental education in primary school to make the pupils develop knowledge about their environment and also develop skills in managing their environment. The aspects which the teachers were concerned with in this category were developing an understanding of the environment, developing positive attitudes towards the environment and developing problem-solving skills. However, most of them were concerned with the aspect of developing positive attitudes towards the environment. Possibly the teachers assume that when the pupils understand their environment, they will develop positive attitudes towards it. The issue here is, does understanding the nature of something necessarily lead to the development of positive attitudes towards it?
C-E1. Understanding the environment
Perceiving the importance of environmental education in terms of making the learners understand their environment was the central idea in this aspect. This implies developing knowledge about the environment, or in other words making
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them environmentally literate. In this aspect, teachers used phrases like “understanding, know about, and developing knowledge”. They argued that the knowledge referred to here is knowing what the environment is, the components of the environment, its importance and relationship to man, and how to use it so that one can live in harmony with these things, hence making life comfortable. For example, two of the teachers said:
“I think it is really important. Even if it is not taught in depth, it can even be taught lightly so that the children develop an understanding of their environment.” (Mangowi, F)
“Oh Yes, It is very important. I think it is important because it helps the pupils understand themselves and their environment where they live so that they can live comfortably.” (Pai, M)
Taking into consideration what the pupils will be engaged in after completing school, some of the teachers suggested what they need to be taught in order to develop an understanding about the environment. When some teachers were interviewed in phase two, they emphasized why the learners need to be taught environmental education at primary school level. First, they pointed out that it is important they know about the things that surround them. Secondly, they should be taught good agricultural practices and animal husbandry. They argued that most of the pupils will later engage in these activities as a means of generating income to support them. Thus, environmental conservation should be taken into consideration when performing different activities so that the environment is not destroyed. Some of their perceptions can be seen from the following extracts:
“I think teaching environmental education in the primary schools is very important. I think so because as I have said before, environment is the first thing that we should know. Environment includes the land and all the things on it such as air and water; therefore, a person needs to know all these things from when he/she is a child because they are around us. If someone gets knowledge about these things, he/she will be able to live in harmony with them and therefore make his life comfortable.” (Mapia, F)
“First, they should be taught about the things that cause environmental destruction, particularly in the agricultural sector. For example, there are some agricultural practices which are destructive to the environment, like cultivating on slopes without using terraces. When the rains come, rain water carries the soil away to the low lying areas. Therefore, if the children are educated from the time when they are in the primary schools, they will be able to understand how to cultivate in steep slopes without causing destruction.” (Aziz, M).
The statements from the teachers show that they describe the importance of teaching environmental education in relation to its applicability to what the pupils will do later in life. The teachers considered that the knowledge they will get through the learning of environmental education will prepare them “to enter the world of work”, as stated in the Education and Training Policy (MoEC, 1995). As most of the pupils will be engaged in agricultural activities after completing primary school education, some of the teachers suggested that they need to be taught good agricultural practices so that they will not destroy the environment.
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C-E2. Positive attitudes
The previous sub-category focused on developing an understanding of the environment. In this sub-category, the development of positive attitudes towards the environment was the major focus. Therefore, most of the teachers were concerned with the aspect of developing positive attitudes towards the environment when they used words and phrases like value, concern, respect, be
conscious and care for. For example, one of the teachers who focused the issue
of attitudes said:
“It is very important that environmental education is taught in the schools because it is the children who are going to inherit the environment from us, so if they get education from the very early stage, when they grow up [……..] they will have developed positive attitudes towards the environment. They will not see environmental education as something new to them when they grow up.” (Chaka, M).
C-E3. Environmental conservation skills
Within this sub-category, the importance of teaching environmental education was focused on helping the learners develop environmental conservation skills. Since environmental problems are mainly caused by man, the teachers feel that man is responsible for rehabilitating the environment as expressed in some of the following utterances:
“Yes, I think it is good if they are taught environmental education because given the current situation, there is growing environmental degradation, therefore they need to rehabilitate the degraded areas so that they return to their former state. For example if you look at the forests, a large part has been cleared. And man is the main destroyer. Therefore if the natural state is to be revived, man is the only person who can do it. I therefore suggest that it is good if the children at primary school are taught environmental education so that they can understand how to solve such problems arising from human activities.” (Aziz, M)
“It is important for environmental education to be taught in our schools so that we can conserve the environment by solving environmental problems around us like drought, water pollution and poor waste management which are critical in our municipality.” (Pazi, M)
“Yes, I think it is important for environmental education to be taught in our schools. Because there is the issue of soil erosion, so if the pupils get environmental education, and conserve the environment by planting trees and cover grass, I think the environment will be good and escape the risk of desertification.” (Furaha, F)
As can be seen from the statements above, the teachers are of the opinion that pupils in the primary school need to be taught environmental education due to the growing trend of environmental degradation. If they get knowledge and skills, they would use them to identify environmental issues and problems in their environment, solve them and prevent new ones from occurring in order to maintain a quality environment.
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