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School Programme

An environmental education course, Our Land Our Life, focusing on village land rehabilitation and sustainable management, has been designed and introduced into the regular school curriculum in classes 6, 7, and 8, with the co-operation of the state's Department of Education. This programme was begun in 1988 and gradually expanded to cover some 500 schools and Intermediate colleges; approximately 65,000 students and 1000 teachers were involved in the programme by the year 2000. In 2002, the state's Department of Education introduced the course into the regular school curriculum.

The course reflects the environmental and livelihood issues that have been raised by women's groups and CBOs in Uttarakhand. Local community participation in the course is a major feature; village residents are requested to narrate village history and share with students their traditional knowledge of land, forest, water, and animal management. Students learn appropriate, ecologically-sound techniques in the classroom. All this information is organised and interpreted within a framework of ecological concepts, notably those of the villages as an ecosystem and sustainable ecosystem management. Together with village residents students the formulate village ecosystem management plans. Practical work is emphasised. Students also learn about community organisations and their  functioning.

Earlier, we trained in-service teachers for the course, supplied workbooks and tools to the students, and undertook school visits to give on-the-spot guidance and to evaluate progress. Further, orientation programmes were conducted for principals, Education Department officials and supervisory staff.

The Education Department, Uttarakhand took over this programme in 2002 as a part of its policy to introduce environmental education in all schools grades 6-8 as a separate subject. UEEC has taken up the responsibility of training of trainers of DIETs (District Education and Training Institute), organizing orientation programmes for principals and monitoring the programme.

To the best of our knowledge this is the only experiment in the country where a separate environmental education course has been developed and implemented in the school curriculum. Our experience confirms our view that to achieve an effective focus on local environmental problems, and adequately to equip students to tackle them, a specific course is needed rather than the 'infusion' approach which is the national policy. We also suggest that this course could serve as a general model for environmental education all over the country, and perhaps in other countries.