People's Republic of China ( China )

The Situation of Environmental Education in China
   1992 is a milestone for China’s EE, which has a 20 years history since 1972. In response to the chapter 36 of the Agenda 21st: PROMOTING EDUCATION, PUBLIC AWARENESS AND TRAINING, a national conference on EE was held in Beijing by Chinese central government, and “Education is the basic for environmental protection” was stated as an essential national policy. In later years, three forces have appeared to be crucial power to shape the EE with Chinese characteristics.
   The first force comes from UN conferences, documents and programs, such as UN Conference on Environment and Development and Agenda 21st in 1992, UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development from 2005. This force drives China’s EE to gradually re-orientate to direction of education for sustainable development. The second force is from China’s educational reform. With acknowledgement of EE as an important dynamic educational part, the “curriculum reform for basic education” started from 2001 adopted a lot of EE teaching and learning ideas and set EE to be a national curriculum for the first time in 2003. The third force comes from international and local NGOs. The rising power from grassroots in China has played a more and more important role in both formal and informal EE.

   In the presence of these three forces, China’s EE appears its diversity in organizers, structures, and ideas. As practices influenced by three forces, three nationwide EE programs, “Environmental Educators’ Initiative,” “Education for Environment Population and sustainable Development” and “Green School,” are representatives of EE in contemporary China.

Dr. Huang Yu

Master Teacher, Environmental Education Center, Beijing Normal University