Assessment of Environmental Awareness Among Primary School Teachers

Over recent decades, global problems relating to degradation of natural resources and pollution have increased dramatically. Natural resources are depleted by excessive use. Fresh water scar- city on a global scale, deforestation, degradation of coastal and marine areas, soil depletion and loss of biodiversity, are some of the problems that have become a major concern. Air and water pollution have reached such levels that have already resulted in serious health problems, as well as negative impact on the environment, and inevitably influencing prospects for long-term economic growth. (Krishnamacharyulu and Reddy 2005) According to a recent estimation by Asch- waden (2007), by 2010 the solar flares are expected to be at their maximum intensity. There will be interruption of all the satellite services like mobile, telephone, television, radio, bank transactions, newspapers and credit cards due to solar radiation. There could be ‘telecommunication black out’ all over the globe, which will have serious impact on several, domains of life. In another startling revelation by the UN climate panel (2007), the melting of Himalayan glaciers could have serious consequences as more than 500 million residents , almost half of the Indian population,rely on the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra river basins for water supply. With Himalayan glaciers melting, its eastern islands sinking and freak rain flooding deserts, environmentalists opine global warming is already taking its toll on one of mostpopulous Asian nation, India. In such a scenario, the importance and need forenvironmental education can hardly be stressed atpresent. In order to protect and conserve theenvironment, enabling people to lead quality life,emphasis has been given to environmental educationin both formal and non- formal system of education. Informal system of education, teachers can play animportant role in educating their students aboutenvironment related issues, which is possible onlywhen the teachers themselves have mastery overenvironmental awareness. A survey of literature on Environmental Awarenessyielded quite inconclusive results. Shahnawaj (1990),in a study on environmental awareness andenvironmental attitude of secondary and highersecondary teachers and students in Rajasthan, foundthat female students possessed significantly moreawareness than males while quite opposite results arereported by Tripathi (2000) where boys had betterawareness than girls. Sabhlok (1995) found that urbanteachers differed significantly from rural and tribalteachers on their awareness of environ- mentalproblems. No difference was observed between ruralteachers and the tribal teachers. On the contrary,Dinakara (2000) reported significant differencebetween urban and rural 122 maryam larijani schoolteachers in environmental awareness. Also,

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government and private school teachers differed significantly in their environmental aware- ness. Patel and Patel (1995) found significant impact of environmental awareness programs on the environmental awareness of the teachers. The present study is aimed at identifying the levels of awareness among 6th nd 7th standard teachers of Warangal city in India. It is hypothe- sized that teachers do differ in their levels of environmental awareness and demographic variables like gender, age and school type will have significant influence on levels of environ- mental awareness.

The sample for the present study consisted of 300 higher primary school teachers teaching in 6th and 7th standards of Warangal city in India from 7 government schools and 22 private schools. Teachers teaching different subjects like Science, Social Studies, Mathematics and Languages were randomly selected from the pre-selected schools as the sample for the study. Of the 300 teachers studied, 136 were males and remaining 164 were females.

TOOLS EMPLOYED

Environmental Awareness Test (EAW): This test was developed by Yeshodhara and Asha in the year 2005. The purpose of this test is to measure the level of Environmental Awareness among teachers and students. This test is norm referenced test and consists of 36 multiple choice items each, focusing on eight different areas of Environmental Awareness such as Environmental Concepts, Pollution and its Control, Population and Health and Hygiene, Animal World, Bio- diversity, Energy, Environmental Concern and Legislation and lastly, Sustainable Development. The split half reliability has been found to be .721 for Kannada version.

PROCEDURE

The researcher personally visited all the selected schools in the year 2008 , where teachers were met individually for explaining purpose of the study and were instructed how to respond to Environmental Awareness Test. Further clarifi- cations were offered on the questions/doubts raised by them and they were requested to cooperate with the investigator for successful completion of the research.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Chi-square test and contingency coefficient tests were employed in the present study. Chi- square test wasemployed to find out the significance of differencebetween frequencies of 3 levels of EAW. Contingencycoefficient analysis was done for finding outassociation between levels of EnvironmentalAwareness and gender, age groups and school type.SPSS for Windows (Evaluation Version 14.0) was usedfor the analysis.

RESULTS

Overall: Of the 300 teachers assessed forEnvironmental Awareness, it was found that 18% ofthem had low awareness, 57.7% of the teachers hadmoderate awareness and only 24.3% of them had highlevel of environmental awareness. Further chi-testrevealed a significant difference among frequencies ofdifferent levels of environmental awareness (Chi-square=81.74; P<.000), confirming that majority ofthem had moderate awareness.

Gender-wise comparison revealed a significantassociation between gender and levels of awareness.Contingency coefficient value of .235 was found to besignificant at .000 levels. Further, from the table it isclear that only 15.4% of the male teachers had highawareness as against 31.7 % of the female teachers.

Even age-group comparison revealed a significantassociation with levels of environmental awareness(CC=.206; P<.039). From table 1 it is clear thatteachers with age groups from 31 to 50 years hadhigher levels of awareness (27.9% and 24.7%respectively) compared to teachers with age groups ofbelow 30 years (17.8%) and 51-60 years (20.8%).

DISCUSSION

Main findings of the present study are as in thefollowings: Majority of the teachers had moderate levels ofenvironmental awareness. Female teachers found tohave higher levels of environmental awarenesscompared to male teachers. Teachers in the agegroups of 31 to 50 years had higher levels ofawareness as compared to other age groups. Teachersworking in private schools had higher levels ofenvironmental awareness as compared to teachersworking in government schools.

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The overall analysis revealed though majority of the teachers had moderate awareness, only few of them had high levels of Awareness. This calls for change in the curricula designed at foundation level (at D.Ed/B.Ed levels). Our globe being highly prone to destruction due to human interference, there is an urgent need to educate the public regarding the phenomena like global warming, environmental degradation, etc. This can be very well initiated at school level by giving advanced training to teachers on environment related aspects. If children at their early age learn about these negative effects, as they grow at least they can make some effort for sustainable development. The results obtained in the present study are more or less not in accordance with some of the studies mentioned here. Badkobi and Hadipour (2001) reported significant difference among male and female teachers in their awareness about environmental education where male teachers had higher awareness. Jinarajan (1999) in his study on student teachers from Bangalore did not find any gender difference in environmental awareness. Again, Vipinder and Jaswinder (2005) reported that male and female teachers had equal levels of scores on environ- mental education awareness. As far as the school type is considered teachers working in private schools had better awareness as compared to government schools. One reason could be that in private schools, the emphasis would be given to recent developments, encouragement in participation on various programs on environment related issues, which is not so pronounced in government schools. Even, Dinakara (2000) reported significant difference in environmental awareness between government and private school teachers. However, Sabhlok (1995) reported government 124 maryam larijani teaches found to be better in awareness than private school teachers.

CONCLUSION

To protect and conserve the Environment, emphasis should be given to Environmental Education in both formal and non-formal system of education. In formal system of education, teachers play a very significant role in developing a greater awareness about environment among students. This calls for a radical change in the way we think, live and work. It therefore goes without saying that sustainable development calls for a paradigm shift in our educational system right from school level to university level. In fact, it cannot be thought of achieving a sustainable way of life without an appropriate educational system designed to internalize the principles of sustainability in the life and work of our youth. Because of the government initiative to make Environmental Education an integral part offormal education through its national curriculumframework, considerable work is being done in thedirection of integrating environmental concepts into the existing curriculum, developing new strategies,preparing instructional material for effectiveimplementation of Environmental Education in theformal system.

REFERENCES

Aschwaden M 2007. Sun may silence your mobilephones by 2010. Star of Warangal, 29: 4. Badkobi A, Hadipour M 2001. Assessment of primaryschool teacher’s educational condition in differentzones of Tehran Municipality in Environmental subjectsand the ways of elevating their Awareness. Scientific Quarterly Journal Environment, 33: 79-80. Dinakara SA 2000.Environmental Awareness,Environmental Attitude and Teaching Practices ofElementary School Teachers of Warangal District inEnvironmental Related Topics. M. Ed. Dissertation.Department of Education, Warangal University. Jinarajan Shabina 1999. A study of EnvironmentalAwareness and Attitude towards EnvironmentalEducation of Student Teachers of Bangalore City.M.Phil. Dissertation, Department of Education,Bangalore University. Krishnamaracharyulu V, Reddy GS 2005.Environmental Education: Aims and Objectives ofEnvironmental Education: Importance of EnvironmentalEducation. Hyderabad: Neelkamal Publications Pvt.Ltd. Patel DG, Patel SK1995. An investigation into theEnvironmental Awareness and its enhancement in thesecondary school teachers. The Progress of Education,LXIX (12): 256-259 and 268. Sabhlok Rou 1995 A study of the Awareness andAttitude of Teachers and Students of High SchoolsToward Environmental Education in Jabalpur District.Ph.D. Thesis, Ani Dugavati Vishwavidyalaya, IndianEducational Abstract, Issue 1, Section 24: 62. Shahnawaj N 1990. Environmental Awareness andEnvironmental Attitude of Secondary and HigherSecondary School Teachers and Students. Ph.D.Thesis. University of Rajasthan, Fifth Survey ofEducation Research, 2(33): 1759. Tripathi M P2000. A comparative study of

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Environmental Awareness of students studying in central schools and other schools at 10+ level in Uttar Pradesh. National Journal of Education, VI(1): 47-51. United Nations 2007. Report on scientific findings for policy makers. Deccan Herald, 2 (34), P. 1. Vipinder S, Jaswinder SD 2005.Environmental Education Awareness among elementary school teachers. Perspectives in Education, 21: 117-122. Yeshodhara K, Asha BN 2005. Questionnaire for testing Environmental Awareness. Warangal: University of Warangal.