UK to prioritise climate change in its education system

In a speech at the 26^th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), the education secretary of the United Kingdom, Nadhim Zahawi announced that they will be taking several measures to bring the issue of climate change into the education system. This will empower children to protect and save the Earth.

According to the measures announced in Zahawi’s speech on November 5, teachers will be guided to educate children with world-leading education concerning climate change through a model science curriculum that will be ready by 2023. It will teach the children about nature and the need to protect it.

Some of the measures to be taken are:

• Students will be able to engage with nature within their campus. For this, biodiversity will be created in the nursery, school or college grounds. It can begin with small initiatives such as installing bird feeders.
• A virtual National Education Nature Park will be launched where students will be able to upload their data to track their progress and compete with other schools. They will be able to develop their skills and gain knowledge.
• A national awards ceremony will be held annually to honour the work of these students.
• Young people can take up projects like turning a particular neighbourhood into a biodiversity area. They will be rewarded for their project by different levels of awards such as bronze, silver and gold.
• The government will additionally install Energy Pods at school for heaters and heating water with zero carbon emission.
• Additionally, teachers will be trained from December 2021 onwards to include sustainability and climate change into their teaching, even in regular subjects.

The total area of the schools, colleges, nurseries and universities take up about twice the land area of Birmingham. So this could help change the biodiversity map of the United Kingdom majorly contributing towards saving the earth.

In his speech, the education secretary said, “Our National Education Nature Park and Climate Leaders Awards will let pupils get hands-on experience of understanding, nurturing and protecting the biodiversity around them.”

We spoke to Dhruba Dasgupta of East Kolkata Wetlands about the significance of such measures. Dasgupta says, “These steps will certainly have a positive impact in the medium to long term, and encourage innovation for a better future. But for protecting the Earth, more international cooperation is needed to replicate any gold standards that the UK might set, and there should be Communications across countries. But two things are missing - an emphasis on encouraging development of technological innovations by young school-goers, and developing a code of ethics by the school children, teachers, parents and other stakeholders.” She is a wetland researcher who has worked extensively with the wetland community for 2 decades in the East Kolkata Wetlands. She added, “As for implementing this model in Indian schools, we first need to tweak our educational priorities quite a bit before we can put in place a meaningful education and climate action strategy. Most importantly, we need to reduce the burden of rote learning and free up more time for young learners to learn from nature, much like Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore wanted to do in Santiniketan. Political will and stakeholder commitment are key to achieving the kind of task that the UK has set for itself.” Dasgupta is a research fellow at IIEST Shibpur.