Botswana Instructor to Produce an Environmental Education Handbook

3 August 2006

Botswana Instructor to Produce an Environmental Education Handbook

An instructor at the University of Botswana, Mphemelang Ketlhoilwe, states that the environmental education is very essential nationwide and worldwide.

Ketlhoilwe said that the whole world is now facing different environmental issues like deforestation, poverty, boost in population growth and pollution, which need to be addressed.

According to him, the EHF or Environmental Heritage Foundation in Francistown, Botswana, organise workshops about developing resource material for students and teachers. The goal of the workshop is to create a guidebook intended for teachers and students regarding environmental problems and how to teach students to be aware of the value of environments they are living in.

Ketlhoilwe said: "The purpose of the workbook is to bring awareness to people as they need to know that natural things are important and they need to be preserved. Environmental Education has never been formally introduced in the curriculum and we hope before long that should be possible". But he said that they are still undecided whether they will publish the handbook for the lower or higher primary students or secondary students only.

In addition, he stated that when his country became an independent nation, there were less efforts done to change the curriculum in order to include environmental education. He also deed that geological attributes such as wildlife depletion, pollution, and pressure on water supply that can cause unprecedented effect on the total ecosystems and lifestyle affected the addition of environmental education to the curriculum.