Background:

Mrs. Attia Qutub launched the pilot phase in 1989 on an entirely voluntary self-help basis. She started sharing the World Commission on Environment-Development video documentary with some English medium schools in the vicinity of her home. She learnt that children enjoyed and gained more from follow-up practical activities, such as schoolyard clean-up campaigns. Children could convey strong messages to parents. With proper motivation, groups of teachers and students even picked up the courage to demonstrate waste management to shopkeepers in nearby markets.

Later she realized that environmental messages were needed as much, if not more, in the Urdu medium schools in low-income areas farther from her home. This entailed a systematic extension approach based on the translation of environmental education (EE) materials into Urdu, teacher training and a regular calendar of school EE events. It required a professional team and teamwork that PIEDAR provided. The team helped develop the course materials and guidelines for child-centered environmental activities. Their roll out was supported by small grants from UNDP.

The Embassy of the Republic of Finland supported the program from 2002 to 2012. It was extended beyond Islamabad and Rawalpindi to the provincial capitals and to rural schools in selected districts. PIEDAR established a cadre of master trainers in mature partner schools to effectively and efficiently reach out to more than 200 schools and 50,000 students across the country.

The case studies generated after several years of project experience with the Urdu medium schools were appreciated at regional workshops across the South, Southeast and West Asia regions. On its sixtieth anniversary in 2008, IUCN the World Conservation Union recognized Attia Qutub as one of the 60 movers and shakers of environmental education.

Process and Components:

PIEDAR introduced the program to the Principal/Headmistress of the school and asked for the identification of a teacher as the environment focal person. It trained the focal person in a range of purposeful activities, such as paper recycling and Origami, to enable her to demonstrate the 3Rs of environmental management. PIEDAR encouraged the formation of Environmental Clubs and the engagement of parents in the program. We delivered EE talks and showed videos to the students, but the focus was always on the activities of the children. These included ‘green’ activities, such as tree and/or nursery plantation and care in State schools with ample spaces, and the care of potted plants in private schools with no schoolyards. ‘Brown’ activities included waste collection, sorting for re-use and recycling, and disposal of the residue in the designated bins. Creative solutions were encouraged, such as composting kitchen waste, recycling paper, making liquid soap and other green products from waste.

As the students grew in confidence, PIEDAR supported their off campus activities, such as an environmental appraisal of the neighboring markets, making environmental management plans with the shopkeepers, and initiating joint clean up action. We also took them on green picnics that combined fun activities with exercises on resource management, e.g. eating healthy and low on the food chain with tasks for no-waste-at-any-stage, as well as biodiversity observation and conservation.

PIEDAR encouraged competition between the clubs and the schools for the best posters, drawings, and skits. The year round achievements were celebrated and recognized on Earth Day in each city/town where we worked. The program also celebrated other days, such as World Water Day and Global Hand-washing Day. The entire network was kept informed of program activities through a quarterly newsletter that incorporated contributions from the teachers and the students.

PIEDAR encouraged the teachers to use its manuals for infusing environmental concepts while teaching Math, Science, English, Islamiyat, Pakistan Studies, and Arts and Crafts. We also developed and shared manuals for personal and home hygiene for primary and secondary schoolchildren and teachers.

Scaling Out:

As PIEDAR sought to scale up its EE program, it also searched for a more self-sustaining pathway to extension of environmental education. Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) provides distance education to around 70,000 trainee-teachers each year. PIEDAR entered into a five-year MOU with AIOU in 2011 for collaboration on environmental education, comprising the development of videos for broadcasting, extension to trainee-teachers, and their assessment and certification. Two videos were duly produced and repeatedly aired on PTV Education Channel. But the transition from a teacher- and textbook-centered to child- and activity-centered EE in distance learning poses a bigger challenge.

PIEDAR worked with the Ministry of Climate Change and UNEP during 2016 – 2018 to introduce EE modules from an international playbook to Federal and provincial curricula, syllabi, and textbook writers and subject specialists. The materials were presented to these specialists at several workshops, the last of which was held in conjunction with a national education conference in January 2018. The specialists were of the opinion that primary and secondary schoolchildren were already overburdened. Furthermore, in many rural areas with one teacher managing five classes at the same time, there was no way to add extra-curricular activities to his/her workload.

Looking Back:

At its peak in 2008-09 the program extended across 200 Urdu-medium schools in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and Kabirwala Tehsil of Khanewal district and reached a cohort of 50,000 students.  Over three decades, an estimated 400,000 students and their teachers were involved in practical environmental care. There is abundant anecdotal evidence that the schoolchildren through their actions and creative messages strongly influenced their parents and friends for better environmental management. Many partner schools grew in confidence in running the EE program and PIEDAR was able to transfer its ownership to them. We have feedback that these mature schools continue to participate actively in environmental events. However, the efforts to influence national and provincial policy makers and curricula specialists for a holistic, child- and activity-centered approach to EE are still at an aspirational stage in Pakistan.