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ENVIRONMENTALEDUCATION IN MALAYSIA:

SABAH CASE

Arba’at HassanUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)

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TERMINOLOGY►Environmental education (EE) called Alam dan Manusia (Human and Environment) ►.. introduced in schools’ curriculum in 1982.

►The term has many names: Nature Study, Outdoor Education, Conservation Education, Environmental Management Education, Community Education, and etc.

►UNESCO suggested … the terminology used as a synonym for each; of the five, singly, or in any combination

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DEFINITION►Cerovsky (1971) … “Book of Environmental Education” defined environmental education as

"...a process of recognizing values and clarifying concepts to develop skills and attitudes necessary to understand and to appreciate the inter- relatedness among man, his culture, and biophysical surroundings. It also entailed practice in decision-making and self-formulation of a code behaviour about issues concerning environmental quality"

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►The American Envtl Edu Act (PL 91-516) :“…good environmental education” criteria should be

1…an interdisciplinary approach, emphasising nature-human interrelationships

2…focus on environmental problems related to the society

CRITERIA

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3. Incorporate of formal + informal education

4. Develop conservation ethics (information programs + resources) outside the classroom

5. Involve people of all ages, and

6. A participant-centred (designs+allows involve-ment in the choice of issues + the problem-solving solutions)

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The Tbilisi Conference (1977) endorsed goals for environmental education into 5 categories:

1. Knowledge: ..to gain a variety of experience + understanding of the problems

2. Awareness: ..to acquire an awareness + sensitivity to environment and its problems

GOALS

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3. Attitudes: ..to acquire a set of values and feelings of concern to environnment, and motivations for actively participating in environmental improvement + protection

4. Skills: ..to acquire skills for identifying + solving environmental problems

5. Participation: ..to be actively involved at all levels in working toward resolution of environmental problems.

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Level 1: Knowledge

Level 4:

Participations

Level 3: Skills

Level 2: Awareness

Figure A Environmental

Education Goal Levels(Hungerford & Volk, 1983)

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Fig A: Envtl Edu Goal Levels (Hungerford & Volk, 1983)

Level I:Level I: Knowledge + Ecological Foundation: …to provide ecological foundation knowledge to make ecologically sound decisions with respect to environment

Level II:Level II: Conceptual Awareness + Values: …to develop a conceptual awareness (i.e.: quality of life+quality of environment, and how the actions on environmental issues be resolved through investigation, evaluation, values, decision-making, and citizenship actions)

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Level III:Level III: Issue Investigation + Evaluation: …to develop and equip skills necessary (investigate environmental issues + evaluate alternative solutions)

Level IV:Level IV: Action Skills + Participation: …equip skills to take positive environmental actions (achieve and/or maintain a dynamic equilibrium between quality of life + quality of environment).

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Map of Malaysia

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MALAYSIA

•Independence in 1957 (Sabah joined in 1963).

•Malaysia… moves aggressively to achieve a status of

“an industrial country” by 2020

•Many forests are logged (for factories, highways,

residential and shop houses, hydroelectric dams, and

other)

•A project: “The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC)” is

implemented

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RESEARCH STUDY

Purpose: …to investigate the attitudes of school teachers on the goals importance of environmental in primary school in Sabah

Procedure: 1. Using instrument Alam dan Manusia Teacher

Questionnaires (ADMTQ) 2. …a modification of the Environmental Education

Curriculum Needs Assessment Questionnaire (EECNAQ) used by Volk's (1983) study in the United States.

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• The respondents asked to indicate their perceptions

• Their perceptions were on the 15 variables

• Level of responds was based on Likert Scale

• The 5-points scale were:

5 = A Complete Extent 4 = A Moderate Extent 3 = A Little Extent 2 = No Extent 1 = Do Not Have Knowledge

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• Table C: Environmental Education Goal Statements

1. •Students gain sufficient knowledge of ecology to permit them to make ecologically sound decisions with respect to both humans and the environment.

2. •Students gain an understanding of the ways in which human social activities (economics, religion, politics, social customs, etc.) influence the environment.

3. •Students gain an understanding of the ways in which individual human behaviours impact on the environment.

4. •Students gain an understanding of a wide variety of environmental issues and both the ecological and social implications of these issues.

5. •Students gain an understanding of the various alternative solutions for solving particular environmental issues in which the ecological and social implications of the solutions are considered.

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6. •Students gain an understanding of the roles played by differing human values in solving environmental issues.

7. •Students develop those skills which will enable them to identify and investigate issues using both primary and secondary sources of information.

8. •Students develop those skills which will enable them to analyse environmental issues and the associated value perspectives with respect to their ecological and cultural implications

9. •Students develop those skills which will enable them to identify alternative solutions for particular issues and to evaluate those solutions with regard to their ecological and cultural implications.

10.

•Students develop those skills which will enable them to identify and evaluate their own value positions related to particular issues and to the solutions proposed for those issues.

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11. •Students are provided with opportunities to apply, those skills in investigating and evaluating environmental issues and their solutions

12. •Students are provided with opportunities to participate in the valuing process in order to examine their own values with respect to both quality of life and quality of the environment.

13. •Students develop those citizenship skills which will enable them to take appropriate action/s (persuasion, consumerism, legal action, political action, ecomanagement, etc.), either individual or group, for the purpose of solving, partially solving, or assisting in solving particular environmental issues.

14. •Students are provided with opportunities to apply citizenship skills in making decisions concerning appropriate environmental action strategies to be used with respect to particular environmental issues.

15. Students are provided with opportunities to take citizenship action on one or more environmental issues.

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THE RESULTS

4.54

4.61

4.54

4.36

4.33

4.40

4.38

4.33

4.30

4.27

4.32 4.63

4.42

4.43

4.30

1

2

3

4

5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15GOAL STATEMENTS

ME

AN

R

ES

PO

NS

ES

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CONCLUSIONS

1. Majority teachers sampled considered goals for EE were very important.

2. Mean responses to the importance of goals ranged from "the moderate " (4.27) to the "complete extent," (4.63).

3. Grand means for goal statement 11 range from 3.98 - 4.78.

4. Majority respondents indicated toward higher end of the scale (4.34); only 2% said they “do not have knowledge.”

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RECOMMENDATIONS

The conclusion resulting from the present study suggests these recommendations.

1. Revise EE goals by the Ministry of Education and the Curriculum Development Centre

2. Incorporate additional goals into the national curriculum. Special emphasis should be placed on those goals in Level III (Investigation and Evaluation Level) and Level IV (Environmental Action Skills of Training and Application).

3. The Ministry of Education should conduct regular training and in-service courses, workshops, seminars, and the like to upgrade and update the teachers' skills and evaluation methods as well as to develop new teaching and learning techniques.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

4. The same study should be replicated at all levels: primary, secondary, college and higher educational institutions to present a total picture of environmental education needs and accomplishments.

5. Replace or substitute the Alam Dan Manusia with a similar subject in the school curriculum to provide knowledge, awareness, and skills to students and citizens

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THANK YOU