Environment education in school level of Nepal : A brief review of formal education system and its achievements

In this global era, developing and developed countries in the world are facing numerous challenges of environmental protection, resource conservation, sustainable development, climate change adaptation, and global warming mitigation. As such, environmental education (EE) has been necessary in school education for the production of conscious, knowledgeable, and skilled young generations to resolve environmental problems. This study is an attempt to appraise the status of EE in school education of Nepal. We collected the earlier and current curriculums and textbooks of the Basic Education (Grade 1-8) and Secondary Education (Grade 9-10) and determined the subject matters of EE providing in school. We found the curriculum and textbooks deal present environmental issues such as pollution control, prevention from natural disasters, conservation of the ecosystem, natural resources, and wildlife, in both earlier and current curriculum. In addition, the current curriculum included global Environmental issues such as climate change, global warming, and sustainable development. The secondary information was collected to check the learning achievement of EE, which revealed students are knowledgeable, aware, and participates in environment protection activities. Proper implementation of designed curriculum and involvement of student’s in environment protection activities are required to accomplish the desired goal of EE.