Educators’ Perceptions and Approaches to Environmental Education and Pro-Environmental Behaviour in South African Secondary Schools

Abstract

Environmental education is taught within the geography curriculum in the basic education system of South Africa. However, owing to various contextual challenges faced in 21st century South African schools, the teaching of environmental education has remained largely paper based. This poses a challenge to educators who are assigned the responsibility to teach environmental education and foster pro-environmental behaviour in learners. The objective of this study was to investigate how geography educators understand environmental education, as well as determining the possible reasons for the gap between content knowledge of environmental education principles and learners’ pro-environmental behaviour. This study was conceptualised and articulated using the Tbilisi Principles of Environmental Education (TPEE) of 1978. An interpretivist paradigm was utilised for this study as it supports the qualitative approach of the study. This study was guided by phenomenology. Five geography educators from five non-fee-paying schools were sampled from a population of educators in the Kwa-Mashu Circuit of the Durban Pinetown educational district of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Data was acquired through voice recordings of five semi-structured interviews, which were consequently transcribed non verbatim to eliminate redundancies in the data. The data was analysed thematically according to the Tbilisi Principles, and discussed according to the research questions they satisfy. The findings indicate that educators are failed by a lack of resources to teach environmental education, as well as a curriculum which does not accommodate the teaching of environmental education constructively. The results of this study further revealed obstacles such as a lack of interest from geography learners, which then increases educators’ challenges when teaching environmental education. It is recommended that the National Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) document be revised to include environmental education constructively within grade 11 geography. This can be done by allocating teaching time specifically for environmental education, as well as ensuring that assessment methods are specific and allocated with resources.