In the Kyrgyz Republic, leading environmental experts from the institutes of higher education, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Education, and NGOs have developed the concept of sustainable environmental education. “Sustainable environmental education” is defined as a continuous process of education, training, and personal development that seeks to form the system of scientific and practical knowledge, skills, values, behavior, and activities in the fields of environmental protection, sustainable environmental use and consumption, and education. There are six stages of sustainable environmental education:
- 1) Environmental education for preschool children. At this stage, the objective is to promote the background development of environmental culture and creativity of children. Preschool environmental education is characterized by emotional and interactive features that seek to build knowledge and form an environmental vision through activities, such as participating in environmental protection and appreciation of natural heritage.
- 2) Environmental education for primary schools and extracurricular establishments. This stage focuses on building the concept of responsibility to the environment. It is implemented by incorporating environmental considerations into courses on “Natural Science of the Kyrgyz Republic (Rodinovedinie),” “Natural Sciences,” and “Basics of Geoecology” in scholastic curricula, launching environmentally oriented schools and classes, and diversifying environmental NGOs.
- 3) Environmental education in secondary professional schools. The environmental education programmes in these professional schools includes a combination of essential knowledge in this area; application of skills in production processes, both routine and for emergency cases; and study of legislative documents and norms in the fields of industrial safety and environment protection.
- 4) Environmental education in institutes of higher education. Environmental education in colleges and universities focuses on building knowledge relating to the interactions among human beings, society, technology, and nature, which were studied initially in secondary school. Advanced environmental studies are based on elaborating the core issues of environmental sustainable development in two key clusters: general ecology and applied ecology. Environmental education in higher educational institutes seeks to inculcate skills to assess the impact of professional activities on the environment.
- 5) Advanced training of state employees, production specialists, and personnel of different establishments and governing bodies. The objective of this stage is to provide the state employees and specialists involved in economics and decisionmaking at the national and regional levels with the information on environment, environmental law, and environmental management that they need to ensure that their decisions are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable.
- 6) Environmental education for the public sector. The objective of this environmental education, which is performed by public organizations, is to create the conditions for people to acquire knowledge, values, and skills that build individual and collective capacity to make decisions at the national, regional, and local levels that improve the quality of life while preserving a favorable environment and without threatening the future of the planet.
Under this project, an assessment and expert evaluation were performed of State educational standards of higher environmental education for Masters’ and Diploma Specialist’s degrees. An Interdepartmental Expert Committee has obtained approval of new State educational standards as well as implementation of the sustainable environmental education concept.
A Central Asian Working Group has also supported the development and improvement of environmental education. The Working Group developed two databases. It has completed a database of experts in environmental education and sustainable development that work at institutes of higher education in the Republic, and it is developing a database of experts at schools of the Republic.
For more information, see http://ecoeducation.host.net.kg/docs/1.htm or contact Sonun Adresheva at the Ministry of Education and Culture at sonun@monc.bishkek.gov.kg or telephone +996-312-62-15-19. Sustainable Environmental Education in the Kyrgyz Republic.