Developing resources and building capacity for environmental education in schools in Cameroon

SubTitle

A partnership between education authorities and conservation organisations led by UNAFAS

Conservation Values Programme with Siren Conservation Education

Text

We describe an NGO-educator partnership which seeks to embed environmental topics into the
primary and secondary curriculum in Cameroon. We report on a participatory approach used to
develop nationally-relevant teacher training materials with input from environmental and
conservation experts. We reflect on our use of an evaluation questionnaire (completed by 1060
teachers in 110 schools), the insight it has given into teachers’ knowledge of and attitudes towards
biodiversity, climate change and mining, and its potential for future use by education authorities as
an indicator and training tool.

Other Author

Penny Fraser, Joseph Meadham, Frederick Njobati, Claude Njoya

Keyword 1

Cameroon

Keyword 2

Environmental education in schools

Keyword 3

evaluation

Keyword 4

Partnerships for learning

Keyword 5

Questionnaire
SLIDE 1

Organisation background and funders

SLIDE 2

Project development – what was the background of UNAFAS and Siren working together- PACE
project and UNAFAS link with voluntary sector schools;

SLIDE 3

The way the project was organised, how participatory workshops and development of resources with
selected NGOs; The benefits of participatory working

SLIDE 4

Some examples of the resources that emerged, why we think it was good to work with the teachers,
the involvement of administrators in the workshops help embed them in the schools. Demand for
the resources. Plans to get them printed and used in courses.

SLIDE 5

The survey design process, what it covered, its purpose, how it was organised, why it is not a random
sample, why it uses the schools as a way to get random teachers. We report on it as purely a survey
that represents those who answered it.

Male, female teachers

SLIDE 6, 7, 8

Some findings from the survey regarding teacher’s knowledge of what environment means,
biodiversity/conservation, climate change and mining, comparing primary and secondary level?

Demand for learning, teachers/schools that mention training

Was training effective

Comparison of answers with EU survey

SLIDE 9

The engagement with the survey as evidence of interest in evaluation and learning about these
topics

SLIDE 10

The potential use of the survey by schools as a follow-up tool, its use as a communication to
authorities about the value of and need for teacher education – not an exact longitudinal study but
within each school or education authority it could form the basis of reflection;

SLIDE 11

Research questions arising from it. Need for more NGO-educator partnership work in Cameroon.

Questions for joseph to explore

Breadth and depth of responses – does it correlate with subject background, level taught (primary v.
secondary), sex and age of respondent, educational level of respondent ( highest academic
qualification being primary, secondary, degree, masters, etc), or French / English region, education
authority.

Use question 3 definition of conservation- preservation being simple answer, preservation with
reference to plants and animals wider.

Look at question 9 definition of environment- simple being ‘surroundings of people’ ‘area around
something’, or ’land, earth, the world’ - with no other choose ticked. If multiple options are ticked, eg
‘surrounding’, + non-living elements, + plants this is ‘deeper’

Biodiversity definitions – we have one graph showing of all responses, do the same for each of
primary school teachers, secondary school teachers, and place side by side to allow comparision.
+ compare French and english speaking,

And Education authorities

Do the same break down for climate change questions

And mining questions.

Do same for question 6

Compare

This is an interesting point at only 27% of people in Europe feel that this is a serious problem
compared to the 74% reading from all the teachers surveyed..........(Q 20)

Globally- very similar (63% vs. 74%)- this is interesting as the concern is actually in Africa...... (Q 21)
People from the study are feel that they are already being impacted by the loss of animals and plant
species (?) compared to 17% concern from the European study.....(Q22)

The answers from the Cameroon survey are similar to that of the EU survey, in that the percentages
are similar.....

refer to q33 why they don't do school projects, what stops them

depletion of the ozone layer linked to climate change – misunderstanding

awareness but not understanding