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A national strategy for environmental education: an approach to a sustainable future?

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Abstract

Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 called on each nation to bring together a widely cross-sectoral group of people to prepare a national strategy for environmental education and training. In Scotland this process had already begun and the Secretary of State's Working Group on Environmental Education presented him with its recommendations for a strategy in April 1993, which he accepted in a statement of intent in June, 1995. The process itself, the comments received on the report since publication and continuing developments in the field, have demonstrated the importance of adopting broad definitions for both ‘environment’ and ‘education’, spreading involvement in production of the strategy to all sectors and as wide a range of individuals as possible, dividing up the work so as to focus on all the main contexts in which learning takes place, working with the main potential implementers and not depending entirely on the availability of new resources. The process was in itself rewarding and its importance should not be underestimated. The approach adopted and the issues which it raised appear to have wide applicability to similar programmes elsewhere. This paper describes the process adopted in preparing the strategy, reviews some of the subsequent developments in Scotland, and assesses the factors which may have contributed to its success so far.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Glenpark, PA5 0SP, Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland

    John C. Smyth

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  1. John C. Smyth
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Additional information

Professor John C. Smyth, OBE is Emeritus Professor of Biology at the University of Paisley. He is President of The Scottish Environmental Education Council and he presented this paper at the Global Forum '94 Academic Conference ‘Towards a Sustainable Future: Promoting Sustainable Development’, Manchester, UK.

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Smyth, J.C. A national strategy for environmental education: an approach to a sustainable future?. Environmentalist 16, 27–35 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01325612

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