As one way of promoting wildlife and environmental education in schools, Ministry of Education in collaboration with Lilongwe Wildlife Trust yesterday officially launched a Wildlife and Environmental Resource Book for Primary Schools.
The resource book among other things, is tackling issues about waste and water management, how people would interact and relate with animals as well as forest conservation.
Speaking at the launch, Secretary for Education, Associate Professor Mangani Chilala Katundu, said the book will impart learners with knowledge, skills, competencies and attitudes that will make them preserve and protect the environment for generations to come.
Katundu added that the ministry will ensure the resource book achieves what it intends to achieve.
The resource book is in line with the Malawi Agenda 2063 specifically enabler number 7: Environmental Sustainability which calls for a clean, secure and sustainable environment.
In her remarks Lilongwe Wildlife Trust Director of Programmes Dorothy Tembo Nhlema said that as LWT they decided to come up with the sourcebook after observing a limitation of wildlife and environmental education in the national education curriculum.
“When we looked at the curriculum we realized that it is little lean in terms of wildlife and environmental education and when we engaged the Ministry of Education the they agreed that indeed primary school curriculum is limited in terms of wildlife and environmental education.
“This prompted us to develop the sourcebook so that it should be used in primary schools for wildlife and environmental education,” Nhlema said.
The event was also decorated by performances by learners from Mlodza and Kauma Primary Schools, Mkomachi secondary School among others whose performances articulated critical environmental issues exposing them to be knowledgeable already about the contents from the resource book.
Ministry of Education, Malawi Institute of Education, Environmental Affairs Department, Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Wildlife and Environmental Society of Malawi and Lilongwe Wildlife Trust worked together to produce the book.
