According to the Minister of the Environment Jaanus Tamkivi, investment into good environmental education is the most effective way to protect the environment. “Success by people today does not require living together with nature as it did two or three generations ago. Now we have to work hard to give people knowledge on what it is that the fragile balance of the environment rests upon and what every person can do to prevent the environmental situation from worsening,” Tamkivi added. The most important among the activities of the environmental education development programme is organising in-service trainings for both teachers and professors of the formal education system and to specialists who provide environmental education outside of schools. The aim of the trainings, organized for teachers and professors, is to support integration of environment-related subjects into the learning process in a manner prescribed in national curricula. Teachers are also presented relevant methodical support materials online. The aim of in-service trainings for extra-curricular environmental education specialists is to harmonise and increase the quality of environmental education throughout Estonia. Under this programme, an environmental education cooperation network will be developed to ensure that the national curriculum-based education and extra-curricular environmental education would support each other, and the development of environmental education in Estonia would be systemic and continual. This programme entered into force upon signature and it is planned to be completed in August 2015. On the basis of the Minister’s authorisation, this programme will be carried out by the Environmental Board. The cost of the programme is EUR 3,195,582, 85% of which comes from the resources of the ESF. |
