Kohima, August 17 (MExN): The Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) is set to reintroduce Environmental Education with a revised syllabus as one of the sixth subjects to be studied at the Secondary stage from next year.
As per a recent notification by the Board, the reintroduction of the subject will be phased and will start with Class IX in the 2025 academic session and Class X in 2026. Accordingly, the NBSE has informed that institutions desiring to introduce Environmental Education in Class IX are to apply to the Board for approval on or before September 30.
The revised syllabus and the prescribed textbooks will be uploaded on the Board's portal later, stated the notification issued on August 12.
As per the NBSE, the minimum educational qualification for teaching Environmental Education would be: (i) Graduate in Environmental Science, (ii) Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Life Science (Botany, Zoology, Chemistry), and (iii) Bachelor of Education (BEd).
To recall, in July 2020, the NBSE notified the discontinuation of Environmental Education and Home Science as a sixth subject at the secondary level.
The two subjects were to be dropped as courses of study from the academic session 2022 in a phased manner (i.e., Class IX in 2022 and Class X in 2023), it noted, adding that the Environmental Education components would be incorporated into other academic subjects.
No reasons were given for dropping the two courses. However, the proposed change just two years after dropping the course (for Class X) appeared to be due to the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF) 2023.
In another notification in May this year, the Board noted that Section 2.4.4 of the NCF has recommended Environmental Education as one of the subjects under interdisciplinary areas to be studied at the Secondary stage.
Hence, in line with this recommendation, it informed all concerned that the Environmental Education subject, which was withdrawn earlier as a course of study at the Secondary Level, would be reintroduced as one of the sixth subjects in a phased manner with a revised syllabus and textbooks.
“Details of the course content, weightage of marks for assessment, and permission for the introduction of the subject will be further notified later,” it added. It remains to be seen if the reintroduction of Environmental Education will require modifications to the syllabi of other related subjects, where its components were presumably integrated.
