Environmental education in Gauteng high schools
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2021
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Abstract
Environmental education (EE) can be a possible avenue to enhance environmental awareness, foster pro-environmental attitudes and, ultimately, alter and eliminate unsustainable behaviours in human society. Formal schooling provides a good opportunity to implement EE, yet the effectiveness of school EE programmes and varying EE methods is not well understood. EE is included in South African policy and legislation, as well as in the South African formal syllabus. Little is known about the extent to which South African documentation and syllabus documents meet global standards and the effectiveness of EE in the South African formal education sector. This study was conducted in Gauteng and the aim was to evaluate the current state of EE in private schools and government schools in the province (across the different quintiles) from the perspective of grade 11 learners, teachers and school management. The objectives of this study were divided into three sections. The first objective involved establishing the extent to which global EE legislation and policies translate to South African policy, initiatives and curricula. The second objective involved evaluating the translation of EE documentation into the Gauteng schools and school EE programmes by determining extent to which EE is incorporated in Gauteng secondary schools, investigating the motivations for schools to implement EE in the manner that they do and evaluating the challenges that educators experience when implementing EE. The final objective involved evaluating the effectiveness of EE programmes in promoting environmental literacy in learners at Gauteng high schools. For the document analysis, selected global and local EE documents (including the South African syllabus documents for 13 subjects) were assessed and compared. For the Gauteng school analysis, 4 private, 4 upper quintile government and 3 lower quintile government schools were selected to participate in this study. Teacher interviews were conducted at each school with at least one educator, and questionnaires (assessing the learners’ environmental literacy) were supplied to the grade 11 learners at each school. It was found that South African EE documentation and (more so) curricula met many of the criteria for EE set in global documents but fell short in terms of specific implementation steps, lacked mention of specific EE teaching methods and did not allow for learners or educators to provide feedback regarding their experiences with the implementation of the syllabus. It was found that EE was well implemented in most Gauteng schools included in this study; the educators followed the syllabus but also applied a variety of EE methods (both within and outside of the curriculum). While many of the educators stated that they implemented EE initiatives because of feeling that it was their moral duty, the educators from different socioeconomic backgrounds had varying motivations to implement EE. The lower quintile government educators implemented EE as their learners experienced the effects of environmental degradation directly. In terms of challenges, educators from all three school types mentioned a lack of time and educators’ knowledge regarding environmental current affairs and dynamics, educators from government schools mentioned a lack of funding and support from the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) and upper quintile government educators mentioned disruptive learner behaviour and disinterest in EE. It was found that, although social media was the most prominent source for EE, school EE provided the greatest basis of reliable environmental information, but it was also found that when school EE was coupled with social media and news, the learners expressed higher pro-environmental attitudes. There was a variation in environmental knowledge and attitudes between learners from varying socio-economic backgrounds but there was no variation in sustainable behaviour. The schools’ implementation of EE was found to enhance environmental iv literacy in learners. Effective in-class EE was linked to enhanced environmental knowledge in learners and the use of a variety of extracurricular and practical EE methods was linked to enhanced pro-environmental attitudes and sustainable behaviours. The specific EE methods (such as habitual recycling) that enhanced sustainable behaviours were identified but it was found that EE methods such as gardening, school clean-ups and the use of an environmental committee proved to be most effective as these methods were linked to enhanced learner environmental knowledge, proenvironmental attitudes and sustainable behaviours.
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A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science to the Faculty of Science, School of Animal Plant and Environmental Sciences , University of the Witwatersrand, 2021