Planning education to care for the earth - IUCN Knowledge Network

Scotland: Developing a national strategy forenvironmental educationJohn C.SmythAbstractA Working Group representing a wide range of educational andenvironmental interests in both the public and private sectors hasprepared a report (April, 1993) outlining a strategy for environmentaleducation in Scotland. The group sought to address all the relevantinfluences on behaviour towards the environment. In making thereport, the group cast its net as widely as possible in order to give thechance to contribute to everyone who wished to do so, and to give allconcerned a stake in its outcomes. The main implementers of thestrategy were consulted during the preparation of the report and afterits completion to obtain their views on the practicability of theproposals and to enlist their support. Several initiatives based on thereport’s recommendations have already been taken. The mostimportant features of a strategy for environmental education arecommon to many countries and the Scottish experience may serve asa starting point for others.IntroductionScotland was already engaged in developing a national strategy forenvironmental education before the call made at the United NationsConference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 1992) foreach nation to develop such a strategy. A strategy for Scotland is appropriateand genuinely national. Scotland has its own Minister of the Environmentand most of the government agencies and non-governmental organizations(NGOs) dealing with environmental issues have distinct Scottish identities.Scottish education in schools is quite separate from the system in other partsof the United Kingdom, with its own Minister in the Scottish Office. Itdiffers from the English system in important ways.A strategy for Scotland has the additional advantage that it deals with arelatively small, compact country which nevertheless has a very variedlandscape and land-use pattern, a population with distinctive nationalcharacteristics and a culture nurtured by a long and eventful history.Despite an early start on environmental education, and many activities in thefield, environmental education has been fragmented, dependent on voluntaryeffort and lacking in status. A strategy was seen as a means to start toaddress these factors and an important basis for making environmentaleducation a significant part of education for everyone.111