There is no systematic approach to environmental education in Central Asian countries, experts believe.
During the next expert discussion organized by the analytical platform CABAR.asia, experts from four Central Asian countries talked about the problems with environmental awareness, culture, and education in the field of environmental protection and ecology of the inhabitants of Central Asian countries.
The participants from Kazakhstan were Svetlana Mogilyuk, Chairperson of ECOM NGO, Chairperson of the Legal Entities Association “Civil Alliance of Pavlodar Region” and coordinator of the Aarhus Center, and ecologist Aliya Vedelikh, PhD, creator of the information and analytical resource Ecostan News, co-organizer of the Central Asian award for young eco-activists Tereshkevich Award and the initiative in support of animals ÖmirFest. Kyrgyzstan was represented by ecologist Nurzhan Chunueva, media and advocacy specialist, winner of the regional environmental award Tereshkewich Award 2023. From Tajikistan, it was Anisa Abibulloeva, project coordinator of the environmental organization “Little Earth”, ecologist with 7 years of experience in the field of environmental protection, member of the board of Climate Action Network (CAN) EECCA, winner of the youth environmental award Tereshkewich Award 2022. Uzbekistan was represented by Saidrasul Sanginov, Leading Consultant of the Committee of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan on issues of development of the Aral Sea region and ecology. Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Central Kengash of the Ecological Movement of Uzbekistan.
The ecological culture of the population of Central Asian countries is not in the best condition, experts believe, as well as enlightenment and education.
Neither schools nor most universities in the countries of the region have separate subjects on ecology and environmental protection. Young people receive fragmentary knowledge partly from textbooks on individual subjects.
Aliya Vedelikh said that in Kazakhstan, as well as in other Central Asian countries, there is no separate subject of ecology in schools. There is a module on ecology within the subject – global competencies. But these are not independent subjects. Schoolchildren receive partial knowledge within the framework of disciplines from various school subjects. There is also no climate education in the school program. Except for a block on understanding the climate, as in other countries, in the 9th grade program, she noted.
“The situation is such, apparently, that by the time schoolchildren finish school, they forget at all what they passed there in the ninth grade about climate. And then, as students or adults, climate activists are proving anew to the graduates that climate change exists. This is such a strange situation, both in Kazakhstan and in other Central Asian countries,” said Aliya Vedelikh.
Despite a general understanding, from politicians to activists and ordinary citizens in general, that it is necessary to raise the level of environmental culture, but there is no reinforcement at the level of governments, she says.
“The Ministry of Education is not backing all this up in practice in any way. The situation is very similar with climate education. We see that we have concern about climate change at the level of presidents. …But at the same time, climate activists spend more time trying to convince the population that climate change exists, even though it should generally take place in schools,” she said.
Nurzhan Chunuyeva, an eco-activist from Kyrgyzstan, cited Emil Zhaparevich Shkurov, a well-known Kyrgyz ecologist and doctor of geography, as an example of how culture is more important than education, because a cultured person cannot throw garbage on the street.
According to Chunueva, unfortunately, people in cities have lost traditional knowledge and understanding of how to live in harmony with nature.
“…The Kyrgyz, they had very advanced technologies for pasture utilization. And, in general, people understood how dependent we are on natural resources, on the environment, and were able to survive because of that. Now we live in cities and are detached from ecology. Unfortunately, this is all being forgotten. And you can see the fact that all our highways are covered with garbage, which, of course, is very terrible. And it is the community and promotion through the community that plays a very important role,” said a Kyrgyz expert.
Tajikistan’s Anisa Abibulloeva agreed, noting that Tajikistan has the same problems with environmental culture, awareness, and education as other Central Asian countries.
Abibulloeva noted three main problems in Tajikistan. First, the education system is lagging far behind the existing environmental problems. Second, the lack of specialized subjects that would teach eco-culture and eco-education. And the third acute problem is the lack of information in Tajik and other national languages.
“This is a very acute problem, including at the level of schools and so on. Environmental education is not applied, because there are simply no quality materials that could be understood by everyone in their native language. It is all very new, and it all needs to be interpreted. And they are only creating some special terms in Tajik to make it at least understandable for the local population,” she said.
She also noted the problem of losing their traditional relationship with the environment.
“Actually our culture, it was quite adapted to the way of life. That is, man understood that we are completely dependent on the environment, and the way we manage it will determine the quality of life. For example, elementary, with the rotation of crops. One season a certain crop is sown, the next season another. This kind of elementary traditional knowledge has been lost because it is not supported or passed down through the generations,” Anisa Abibulloyeva said.
Saidrasul Sanginov, an Uzbek expert, said environmental culture has always been at the center of attention in Uzbekistan. There is an entire environmental movement, a public association of Uzbekistan, created by environmental scientists and public figures, which has a permanent faction of 15 seats in the legislative chamber of the Oliy Majlis.
Sanginov said that the deputy group of the Ecological Movement has developed a concept for the development of environmental education in Uzbekistan, which was adopted by the Cabinet of Ministers and approved in 2019, shortly before the pandemic.
He emphasized that over the past year at parliamentary hearings, in the Senate committees, the issues of eco-education and enlightenment have been raised repeatedly. This their work has been heard. At the big conference call, January 29, it was heard from the mouth of the head of state, where all members of the government and officials were present.
However, significant progress has not yet been made in this area, Sanginov noted.
“Problems remain. This is the reduction of academic hours on environmental disciplines in secondary specialized, higher educational institutions. Reduction of disciplines that were at the level of higher education. Disciplines on ecology, it is general ecology, social, issue in ecology and other issues. Reduction in the number of specializations, departments of higher education institutions. This is what we have to deal with, what we are facing. And these issues, of course, we will address in our work,” Sanginov said.
The participants of the meeting spoke about the measures taken by the authorities, bloggers and eco-activists to improve the situation in the field of environmental education and culture in Central Asian countries. However, what is being done is not enough, they said.
“We have all eco-culture, eco-action, eco-education ending with mandatory subbotniks and tree planting. Whoever you ask, young people or the older generation, what to do to preserve the environment or what eco-culture is for you, it’s Saturday clean-up days and trees. Somebody else might say something about plastic. That is, basically, for people it is garbage and some elementary decorative, I would say, landscaping. But there is no such deep knowledge,” Anisa Abibulloeva said.
“And I had such an insight today, how much more needs to be done in order for us to have some tangible changes. In the general context, one of the speakers said that it is not felt that people have become more conscious, as if. Although a lot of work is being done,” Nurzhan Chunuyeva supported her.
Svetlana Mogilyuk also noted that, as in all other countries of the region, Kazakhstan does not have a systematic approach to eco-education.
“In my opinion, this is the most important, because… if a person does not have a deep understanding, then the culture will not be formed, the ability to make the right decisions will not be formed. In general, in our country now a lot has been done to ensure that people have the right to participate in decision-making on environmental issues, … to participate in public hearings and so on. But we see that the activity of people in asserting their rights, because yes, well, waste, water, it’s all very necessary, right. But this is all – superficial such manifestations of our deep understandings,” she said.
According to Mogilyuk, the lack of deep understanding of the eco-education problem also exists among decision-makers. She said that back in 2020, the president of Kazakhstan made one of his annual addresses to the nation and emphasized the importance of environmental culture.
“Until it is heard from a high rostrum, state bodies do not start working on this issue. Unfortunately, this is the way things are organized here,” she said.
According to the expert, eco-education is a vicious circle. The Ministry of Education believes that the school program is overloaded, so they can’t allocate extra hours for ecology. And the Ministry of Ecology believes that this is not their issue at all, but the Ministry of Education.
“In all countries of the region, ecology is included in various school subjects. In geography, in chemistry and even in literature we know that there are such requirements that the topics of ecology are studied. But you have to agree that not all teachers of other disciplines have deep knowledge and understanding and can really deliver the basics of knowledge in a qualitative way. And we often get such rather superficial things, as we see it. As a result, the culture is not formed,” she said.
According to Mogilyuk, there has been a backlash in higher education on this issue, because a few years ago there was a special subject, ecology of sustainable development, a mandatory subject for all, unfortunately, now it is not mandatory.
“That is, we even see a rollback, not progress, as proclaimed from high tribunes, but we see steps backwards. There is still no this subject in school education, a specialized subject in higher education has disappeared. And as a result, we see that specialists in all sectors of the economy, they do not realize how their activities destroy the environment,” she said.
Svetlana Mogilyuk cited the example of the Water Ministry, which instead of taking measures to preserve water bodies, is going to build a bunch of new reservoirs.
“But for environmentalists who realize that this goes to excessive evaporation and, in general, just to unnecessary waste of water resources. For us, it’s just nonsense. We don’t understand how such decisions can be made. But we understand that it happens because there is no deep systemic knowledge,” Mogilyuk said.
Participants of the analytical meeting proposed a number of measures that could significantly improve the situation in the field of eco-culture.
Aliya Vedelih proposed to unite efforts of all Central Asian ecologists, activists, scientists to systematize all available developments. She also believes that it is necessary to prepare information materials in local national languages.
“… We don’t have enough materials, especially on climate education in national languages. This is mega important because we have villagers mostly speaking national languages. And at the same time, rural people are the most affected by climate change. … Information doesn’t reach the villagers because language, because internet is not there. … We all Central Asian countries need a separate subject in the school program. And now that Central Asia is becoming more active in climate negotiations, we have a chance to promote climate education in the educational system as part of this process,” she said.
Nurzhan Chunuyeva noted the need for interaction between the civil sector and the government.
“It is necessary for state bodies to cooperate with the civil sector in order to scale the activities and expertise of experts, ecologists. And we have very good examples of how our Ministry of Nature has started to work…And I would also like to say that it is important that they should be open. … And also the third point, the last one, is that it is necessary to introduce environmental culture into mass culture,” she said.
Anisa Abibulloyeva believes that it is necessary to introduce best practices and successful experience of foreign countries and told about her internship in Vienna, Austria.
“They started all this in 1980. That is, it took them, as a country, more than forty years to bring their population to this level. … They had a very interesting approach. First of all, they introduced eco-education at the kindergarten level. That is, they organized it in such a way that they taught children, children went home and taught their parents how to sort garbage, how to save energy and so on… Children come home and teach their parents, not the other way around. And that included the schools. So, it turns out that children were such gas pedals of their structural changes,” she said.
Saidrasul Sanginov said that their party has long ago developed recommendations. They are enshrined in the Concept of Development of Environmental Education in the Republic of Uzbekistan.
“This is a systematic document. It lays out what needs to be done at the level of preschool education, starting with the family, kindergartens, and nurseries, at the level of general secondary education, secondary education, secondary special education, higher education, postgraduate education, at the level of advanced training and extracurricular education,” he said.
In addition, it is necessary to use innovative approaches and technologies. There is a need for closer integration of science, education, practice in the issues of environmental education and upbringing.
“Formation of environmental culture should be considered as a single process and increase of environmental knowledge, training in environmental behavior skills not only in nature, but also in everyday life, and education of careful attitude to the environment, starting from atmospheric air, drinking water, water in general, land resources, ending with biodiversity”, – said Saidrasul Sanginov.
You can watch the full panel discussion here.