Planning education to care for the earth - IUCN Knowledge Network

The Netherlands: Inter-departmentalcooperation on environmental educationPeter BosAbstractSeven Ministries in the Netherlands combine their resources insupport of a national strategy for environmental education in theformal and non-formal educational sectors. The Concept Plan forenvironmental education calls for the widest participation of publicand corporate organizations and citizens’ groups in collectiveaction in the remaining years of the century. The government has animportant role to play in creating the necessary conditions, but it isup to non-governmental organizations and institutions to organizeeducational activities and decide on the precise content ofprogrammes. Good cooperation between government and the nongovernmentalsector, as well as effective communication betweenprogrammes is essential.IntroductionCivil servants of several Dutch Ministries decided in the 1970s to meetnow and then to exchange information on their respective activities in thefield of environmental education (EE). They formed the Inter-MinisterialCommittee on Environmental Education, which was eventually joined byseven departments.As an outcome of their meetings, the Minister of Agriculture, NatureConservation and Fisheries and the Minister of Housing, Planning andEnvironmental Management presented a memorandum on EE in 1988.The memorandum analyzed the state of EE in the Netherlands, identifiedbottlenecks, and announced measures for more systematic development.The Dutch Parliament discussed the memorandum with the Ministers andwhile the general outline received support, the scope of the paper wascriticized.The message was that more money should be invested in EE by moreMinistries in relation to more policy areas. In one motion , the Ministerswho had presented the memorandum were urged to extend their efforts inthe framework of the National Nature Policy Plan and the NationalEnvironment Policy Plan; in another, the five other concerned Ministries -103