Introduction
India, a land of remarkable ecological diversity, is home to many flora and fauna. The intricate relationship in nature supports regulating and maintaining all ecosystems on Earth. However, it is no longer a hidden fact that human longing for bliss and comfort has driven us to exploit nature’s gifts to decrease its self-stabilisation and balancing capacities (Buss, Reference Buss2000; Bostrom, Reference Bostrom2005; Sharma, Reference Sharma2009; Shimray, Reference Shimray2016; Diaz et al., Reference Díaz, Settele, Brondízio, Ngo, Agard, Arneth, Balvanera, Brauman, Butchart, Chan, Garibaldi, Ichii, Liu, Subramanian, Midgley, Miloslavich, Molnár, Obura, Pfaff and Zayas2019). Education plays an instrumental role in resolving environmental crises and concerns. It is a tool that was used to foster environmental consciousness and inspire the population to become responsible citizens (Choudhary, Reference Choudhary2022; Mundhe, Reference Mundhe2023; Hasanova & Safarli, Reference Hasanova and Safarli2024). Recognising the crucial role education plays in this critical endeavour, particularly its potential to foster environmental awareness and action, gave genesis to the idea of Environmental Education (EE) that emerged as a distinct field of study. One of the earliest definitions of EE, known as the IUCN definition, states that “environmental education is the process of recognising values and clarifying concepts in order to develop skills and attitudes necessary to understand and appreciate the inter-relatedness among man, his culture and his biophysical surroundings. Environmental education also entails practice in decision-making and self-formulation of a code of behaviour a bow issues concerning environmental quality” (IUCN, 1971, p. 17). Hence, EE is a holistic approach, sparking a deeper understanding of the complex interrelationships between humans and the natural world.
Environmental education
Organisations like UNESCO and UNEP recognise the importance of EE and actively promote its inclusion in formal education systems. It serves as a critical pathway for advancing environmental literacy (Ballantyne, Reference Ballantyne1995; Plevyak et al., Reference Plevyak, Bendixen-Noe, Henderson, Roth and Wilke2001; Ruskey et al., Reference Ruskey, Wilke and Beasley2001). Despite these efforts, EE still struggles to gain a strong foothold in many pre-service teacher education programmes (Lane et al., Reference Lane, Wilke, Champeau and Sivek1995; Petegem et al., Reference Petegem, Blieck, Imbrecht and Hout2005; Thãn, Reference Thãn2001) as some programmes incorporate EE while others do not. This requires an analysis of the status of the EE-related courses in various pre-service teacher education programmes.
EE as a field has a “small core but big periphery” which distinguishes it from the traditional disciplines and makes it more action-oriented to address the environmental issues through education (Robottom & Hart, Reference Robottom and Hart1993; Sauvé, Reference Sauvé2005). This represents a vast set of contexts and interdisciplinary connections of EE drawing from various fields like natural science, social science, humanities etc. (Palmer & Neal, Reference Palmer and Neal1994, Reid & Scott, Reference Reid and Scott2006). To address this complexity, the framework of education “in,” “about” and “for” the environment has emerged as a significant paradigm for understanding EE discourses (Lucas, Reference Lucas1972; Palmer, Reference Palmer1998). However, in practice the most convenient approach to EE implementation remains the information-based education “about” the environment, with limited focus on experiential learning “in” the environment or action-oriented education “for” the environment (Shimray, Reference Shimray2016).
The effectiveness of EE largely depends on the teacher’s skill and knowledge at all levels of education (Darling-Hammond, Reference Darling-Hammond2000; Adejoke et al., Reference Adejoke, Mji and Mukhola2014; Durrani et al., Reference Durrani, Rahman and Anjum2021; Samur & Akman, Reference Samur and Akman2023), as they serve as catalysts for developing environmental awareness, sustainable behaviours and appreciation for the natural world among students (Loubser, Reference Loubser2015; Merritt et al., Reference Merritt, Hale and Archambault2019 & Karim et al., Reference Karim, Abdullah, Ayub and Sharaai2021; Ayaz et al., Reference Ayaz, Doruk and Sarıkaya2021; Onuoha et al., Reference Onuoha, Ngobiri, Ochekwu and Onuoha2022). However, teachers feel that they do not have the necessary skills and knowledge to teach various topics of EE like climate change (Prokopy et al., Reference Prokopy, Carlton, Arbuckle, Haigh, Lemos, Mase, Babin, Dunn, Andresen, Angel, Hart and Power2015; Plutzer et al., Reference Plutzer, McCaffrey, Hannah, Rosenau, Berbeco and Reid2016; Monroe et al., Reference Monroe, Plate, Oxarart, Bowers and Chaves2017). A persistent challenge is teachers’ limited understanding of EE’s interdisciplinary nature, with research spanning over four decades documenting how teachers often reduce environmental education to science education (Lucas, Reference Lucas1980, Reference Lucas1983; Li et al., Reference Li, Li and Tsai2022), confuse it with environmental science or fail to recognise its cross-curricular integration potential with their discipline (Ham & Sewing, Reference Ham and Sewing1988; Palmer, Reference Palmer1998; Stevenson, Reference Stevenson2007; Reid & Scott, Reference Reid and Scott2006; Prokopy et al., Reference Prokopy, Carlton, Arbuckle, Haigh, Lemos, Mase, Babin, Dunn, Andresen, Angel, Hart and Power2015). Research demonstrates that teachers face challenges in integrating environmental education topics across disciplines, a difficulty rooted in pre-service teacher education programmes that inadequately prepare them in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teaching approaches (Heimlich et al., Reference Heimlich, Braus, Olivolo, McKeown-Ice and Barringer-Smith2004; Monde, Reference Monde2011; Ibimilua & Amuno, Reference Ibimilua and Amuno2014; Shimray, Reference Shimray2016) and transdisciplinary approach (Heimlich et al., Reference Heimlich, Braus, Olivolo, McKeown-Ice and Barringer-Smith2004; Semerjian et al., Reference Semerjian, El-Fadel, Zurayk and Nuwayhid2004; Riley et al., Reference Riley, Jukes and Rautio2024). Incorporating socio-scientific content and relating it to real-world issues would develop critical thinking skills and provide a more holistic understanding of environmental challenges (Hogan & O’Flaherty, Reference Hogan and O’Flaherty2021; Capel et al., Reference Capel, Allan, Favela, Clem, Ooi, Virrueta Herrera, Wilson and Strickland2023). The devastating consequences of unsustainable human activities have also brought two viewpoints into sharp focus to understand EE, i.e., the ecocentric and anthropocentric viewpoints. The ecocentric viewpoint emphasises the inherent value of nature, while the anthropocentric view advocates for discovering pragmatic solutions that balance environmental protection with human well-being (Duncan et al., Reference Duncan, Schnore and Rossi1959; Mendenhall, Reference Mendenhall2009; Preiser et al., Reference Preiser, Pereira and Biggs2017; Washington et al., Reference Washington, Piccolo, Gomez-Baggethun, Kopnina and Alberro2021). While both viewpoints offer valuable insights into the complexities of EE, these are often underutilised in analyses and interpretations of EE theory and practice.
The integration of these pedagogical viewpoints (inter-multi-transdisciplinarity), epistemological viewpoints (social, scientific or socio-scientific) and philosophical viewpoints (ecocentric and anthropocentric) reflect on the “orientation” of EE-related courses, which refers to the positioning of EE course content and how it is framed and approached in teacher education programmes (Stevenson, Reference Stevenson2007).
However, in the context of Sustainable Development Goals and 21st-century environmental concerns like climate change and biodiversity loss, etc., EE is expected to respond to the emerging goals in contemporary times. “Responsiveness” in relation to the EE-related courses within the Pre-service Teacher Education Programme signifies their adaptability to address the emerging contemporary environmental issues and concerns (Boamah et al., Reference Boamah, Du, Xu, Nyarko Mensah, Khan and Allotey2020; Onuoha et al., Reference Onuoha, Ngobiri, Ochekwu and Onuoha2022).
There is very limited research on the interface between teacher education and environmental education, and no research has been found that analyses the status, orientation and responsiveness of EE-related courses within pre-service teacher education programmes. The present research has contributed towards developing various perspectives for analysing the EE-related courses within pre-service teacher education programmes.
Teacher education programmes and place of environmental education-related courses in Indian context
In India, for teacher education programmes National Education Policy (NEP) 2020Footnote 1 advocates to “integrate environmental awareness and sensitivity towards its conservation and sustainable development, so that environment education becomes an integral part of school curricula.” (NEP 2020, pg. 23)
However, the successful translation of these policy provisions requires adequately prepared teachers, where the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) plays a central regulatory role for teacher education institutions in India, establishing standards for curriculum and pedagogical practices. A variety of pathways exist to qualify as a teacher, including diploma programmes (e.g., D.El.Ed.Footnote 2 , DECCEFootnote 3 , D.P.EdFootnote 4 , D.Ed. Special EducationFootnote 5 ), bachelor’s degrees (e.g., B.Ed.Footnote 6 , B.El.EdFootnote 7 , B.A. B.Ed.Footnote 8 , B.Sc. B.Ed.Footnote 9 , B.P.Ed.Footnote 10 , B.Ed. Special EducationFootnote 11 ) and postgraduate programmes (e.g., MA EducationFootnote 12 , M.Ed.Footnote 13 , M.P.Ed.Footnote 14 ) catering to diverse educational levels and specialisations. Recent curriculum revisions and governance reforms signal a re-envisioning of teacher education, emphasising on integrating critical perspectives such as environmental education and education for sustainable development into teacher training programmes. Consequently, the ITEPFootnote 15 is an emerging teacher education programme designed to address contemporary demands and needs within India.
This study examines teacher education programmes in India, specifically focusing on courses related to environmental education. While these courses vary in title and credits, they generally indicate their orientation and status within the programme broadly. For instance, the D.El.Ed. programme (2 years) includes a compulsory 100-mark course, “Environmental Studies Education,” emphasising a socio-scientific perspective. In contrast, the DEECE programme (2 years) integrates environment-related content as a sub-section within a pedagogy course, accounting for 2 credits. Similarly, the B.Ed. programme (2 years) offers a 100-mark elective paper titled “Environmental Education,” also adopting a socio-scientific perspective. B.El.Ed programme (4 years) includes “Pedagogy of Environmental Studies,” with a broadly socio-scientific perspective. Other programmes, like B.P.Ed. require students to complete a 100-mark (4 credits) paper entitled “Health Education and Environmental Studies.” The B.A. B.Ed programme (4 years) mandates a 2-credit course titled “Environment Education,” which approaches the subject from a socio-scientific perspective. In contrast, the B.Sc. B.Ed programme (4 years), while offering a course with the same name and credit weighting, emphasises a scientific perspective. Furthermore, both the B.A. B.Ed and B.Sc. B.Ed programmes extend their environmental curricula by providing a 3-credit elective course in “Environmental Economics.” The ITEP (4 years) offers a 2-credit compulsory course, “Citizen Education, Sustainability and Environment Education” and a 4-credit elective course titled “Education for Sustainable Development.” Notably, certain programmes, such as D.Ed Special Education (2 years) and B.Ed. Special Education (2 years) does not include any specific environmental education content within its curricula. This study has further analysed the established and widely adopted pre-service teacher education programmes in detail that have been in place for many years, i.e. B.Ed., B.El.Ed. and D.El.Ed. These programmes were selected because they provide a wide spectrum of teacher preparation across all school education levels (primary, elementary, secondary and senior secondary) in India.
Research objectives
This study has two major objectives:
1) To explore how the EE-related courses have been reflected in the pre-service teacher education programmes;
2) To examine the orientation and responsiveness of the EE-related courses.
Methodology
This qualitative study examined EE-related courses across three major and widely offered pre-service teacher education programmes (B.El.Ed., D.El.Ed. and B.Ed) in Delhi (the capital city of India). These programmes were selected as they are the most prevalent pre-service teacher education programmes in India that prepare teachers for various levels of school education, specifically those administered by government institutions with a minimum operational period of 10 years. B.Ed and B.El.Ed. programmes were chosen from the University of Delhi, and D.El.Ed. was chosen from the SCERTFootnote 16 . After identifying relevant EE courses and their structural placement within each programme (duration, credit allocation, status), the study employed Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) to systematically analyse course syllabi. This methodology entailed a rigorous examination of textual content and contextual meaning through systematic coding procedures to identify emergent themes, focusing particularly on course objectives and their interpretive significance.
The analysis employed four pre-established analytical perspectives derived from literature: ecocentric/anthropocentric viewpoints, interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary/ transdisciplinary approach, social/scientific/socio-scientific approaches and contemporary environmental concerns. These perspectives were systematically applied to examine course status, orientation and responsiveness across four thematic areas: nature and scope, theoretical content, practicum, pedagogical and assessment approaches.
The study employed triangulation to enhance research credibility and trustworthiness. It involved two peer reviewers and an environmental education expert in the data analysis process. Following the QCA methodology, the data were analysed using coding themes. Subsequently, a consensus-building discussion was held, allowing for the triangulation of findings and ensuring a reliable interpretation of the data.
Analysis and interpretation
This section presents organised data, analysis, as well as interpretation thematically, of the three respective courses related to EE.
EE-related courses: Nature and scope
(a) Structure of the courses
While the elective status of “Environmental Education” course in B.Ed. offer the opportunity to enrolled student-teachers from any discipline to opt and engage with the course. However, the elective status can result in the engagement of a limited number of student-teachers who can effectively integrate EE across school subjects. Consequently, the aim of widespreading EE among student-teachers could be hindered. It shows that EE is valued when chosen (100 marks) but not considered essential. Conversely, the compulsory status of PEVS and ESE courses in the B.El.Ed., and D.El.Ed. programmes reflect that institutions offering the course view them as essential teacher competencies. All enrolled student-teachers get basic EE exposure that aims to develop an understanding of the nature of EVS and related pedagogical approaches. However, the total marks of PEVS course (50 marks) implies limited depth in the content it covers. Hence, the compulsory PEVS and ESE courses acknowledge importance of EE, but the elective “Environmental Education” course suggests that comprehensive environmental preparation is not considered necessary for all student-teachers.
(b) Review of the objectives
The Environmental Education course’s objectives focus on developing student-teachers’ awareness regarding environmental concepts and related social factors, which seems to highlight educating them “about” the environment. The PEVS course objectives focus on recognising the importance of the subject as a bridge between science and social science, emphasising the preparation of student-teachers “about” the environment by engaging them in studying EE as both a field of study and practice. The ESE course objectives likewise emphasises on developing the theoretical understanding of the concept of EVS that recognises ecological (physical) and human (social) dimensions of the environment, highlighting the inclination towards educating “about” the environment. The objectives also focus on facilitating student-teachers with pedagogical approaches aligned with the National Curriculum Framework- 2005 and the content of the EVS curriculum which would make them aware of the structure of the core content of EVS at different levels (primary, secondary, senior secondary) and its interconnections with other subjects. The emphasise on creating an inclusive and learner-friendly environment implies moving beyond merely transmitting facts to fostering critical thinking and educating them in the environment.
Despite their distinct emphasis, the objectives of all three courses demonstrate an inclination towards educating “about” the environment that significantly includes social, and pedagogical approaches and less in scientific, and socio-scientific approaches in EE. This convergence reflects that an effective EE requires an integration of scientific, social and cultural dimensions.
EE-related courses: Theoretical components
The “Environmental Education” course reflects an interdisciplinary approach that acknowledges the complex interconnections between human and natural systems. Topics like “Development as …. progress,” centres on human advancement as the primary goal. Though “sustainable development issues” are introduced, they primarily serve as a bridge to reconcile human aspirations with the environment. The focus on “alternative approaches to sustainable development” appears to search for models that primarily serve human interests while minimising environmental harm. “Well-being of the global community,” is highlighting the about improving human lives. Such topics seem to carry an anthropocentric viewpoint. Topics like issues of sustainable development, studying environmental concerns from social and natural sciences perspectives, notions and issues of development and its relationship to the natural and social systems, etc. given in the course, highlight the presence of socio-scientific viewpoints. The topics deliberately integrate “economics, political, social progress,” with the environment to critically examine the notion of development and explore alternative approaches, reflecting the possibility of using a multidisciplinary approach. Studying “policy, documents,” “curriculum,” appears to develop an understanding of theoretical and practical aspects that shape the decisions related to the environment at different levels (national or international). Hence, the course demonstrates underpinnings in inter-and multi-disciplinary approaches by explicitly drawing upon relevant socio-scientific viewpoints like social and natural sciences, particularly biophysical environment concerns like pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change, etc. in the course.
Meanwhile, the PEVS course’s topics appear to imply the value of understanding the conceptual underpinning of EVS as a curricular area. There is a dearth of topics related to environmental issues which focus on “educating for the environment.” The PEVS course emphasises contextualising EE within children’s immediate surroundings and fostering harmonious environmental relationships through processes like observations and prediction. Incorporating “inquiry-based learning, discussions, and experiments” provides the potential for learning about pedagogical approaches but does not focus on philosophical perspectives (anthropocentric or ecocentric). The course draws insights from social and pedagogical aspects of the environment to understand EVS, demonstrating an inclination towards an interdisciplinary approach with a focus on “educating about the environment.”
Whereas, the ESE course topics emphasising social harmony while incorporating discussions on the preservation of nature suggest the integration of social and ecological dimensions. Whereas, topics like “emerging issues and implication of EVS” imply a scope to use a socio-scientific approach to understand EVS which may include aspects related to educating for environment. However, the scientific aspects are not evident in any unit of the ESE course. Although commemorative elements and biographical studies of leaders like Gandhi potentially illustrate human-ecological interconnectedness. However, subsequent units primarily focused on pedagogical approaches. The curriculum explicitly provides for diverse teaching approaches (scientific, integrated, inclusive), demonstrating methodological versatility for prospective teachers. The integration of EVS with mathematics and language establishes a clear commitment to interdisciplinary learning enabling students to make connections between subjects and with environmental concerns. Only one topic “environment as a resource” demonstrates an inclination towards an anthropocentric approach in the ESE course.
While all three courses incorporate largely an interdisciplinary approach, a concerning pattern emerges in their curricula. Their major focus on social and pedagogical aspects neglects scientific foundations, particularly biophysical environmental concerns. The emphasis on educating “about” the environment is also prevalent in the three courses. Equally concerning was the absence of ecocentric viewpoints within all three courses and the limited presence of an anthropocentric approach in the Environmental Education and ESE courses. This misses an opportunity to foster ethical considerations in environmental decision-making by neglecting to engage the prospective teachers with environmental philosophy perspectives.
EE-related courses: Practicums
The Environmental Education course of B.Ed. appear to encourage student-teachers to explore real-world environmental issues, fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills, demonstrating a commendable emphasis on a socio-scientific approach. Practicum tasks appear to bridge theoretical knowledge with practical application through inquiry-based exploration, preparing student-teachers to address local environmental challenges. Whereas, the PEVS course’s practicum used a project-based approach which aligns with the National Curriculum Framework 2005. It emphasised community engagement, with projects like “oral history” and “planning excursions” providing opportunities for student-teachers to contribute to broader societal contexts. However, the practicum’s focus on social aspects with project like oral history that appears to overshadows the natural environment dimensions. While tasks like tree plantation appear to address this dimension, the practicum lacks such natural environmental exploration activities. Hence, a limited socio-scientific approach is reflected in the PEVS practicum. In contrast, the ESE course’s practicum emphasis on structured tasks like “visit a museum or historical monument,” demonstrates significant limitations in providing comprehensive environmental education. While practicum appears to address social environmental dimensions, it neglects natural environmental aspects, hindering student-teachers understanding of social-scientific interconnections in a balanced way. Viewing places primarily as resources appears to represent an anthropocentric orientation by limiting natural environmental understanding. Furthermore, both the ESE and PEVS practicums suffer from restricted task flexibility, where major assigned tasks focus narrowly on developing teaching resources for EVS, restricting student-teachers’ freedom to explore other areas of EE.
Despite the alignment between theory and practice across all three courses, reveal insufficient practicum depth. This inadequacy reinforces a lack of balance between social and scientific aspects particularly in the activities under PEVS and ESE courses.
EE-related courses: Pedagogical and assessment approaches
(a) Pedagogical focus and incorporation of contemporary issues and concern
The Environmental Education course in B.Ed. allocates limited space to explicit pedagogical instruction. The course prioritises developing student teachers’ understanding about the environment and development. This lack of explicit pedagogical approaches like “infusion” could potentially hinder student teachers’ ability to infuse environmental topics effectively into their teaching that is required to teach secondary and senior secondary classes. In contrast, the ESE and PEVS courses demonstrate a highly structured and robust pedagogical approach. These courses dedicate significant time to “lesson, unit, pedagogy planning,” and teaching through practical activities like “excursions and resource development.” The explicit pedagogical focus ensures prospective teachers acquire essential skills for effective teaching of EVS at the primary-level.
While the Environmental Education course incorporates contemporary issues like development and sustainability, the other two courses lack engagement with these crucial topics. All three courses inadequately incorporate emerging concepts (SDGs, ESD) and current environmental challenges (climate change, biodiversity loss etc.), recent international/national initiatives, and policies. These topics are critical elements for addressing 21st-century environmental challenges highlighted in NEP 2020. These limitations raise questions about achieving an optimal balance between pedagogical instruction and contemporary environmental content knowledge, issues and concerns in teacher education.
(b) Assessment practices
Despite Environmental Education’s action-oriented nature, the assessment methods across all courses predominantly rely on traditional written examinations that evaluate knowledge while neglecting attitude and behavioural dimensions. The ESE and PEVS courses formally bifurcate marks (75%–25%), whereas the B.Ed.’s EE course lacks explicit theoretical-practical assessment distribution, potentially allowing teachers to bifurcate the marks according to the needs and demands of the course. This over reliance on conventional evaluation approach, and limited scope to engage with the community and action-based projects, creates a troubling disconnect between theory, practicum and assessment methodologies. This misalignment raises significant concerns about these programmes’ capacity to adequately prepare future teachers to implement comprehensive, action-oriented EE that effectively cultivates critical thinking, problem-solving and environmental action among students.
Findings and discussion
The finding regarding the “status” of EE-related courses under teacher education programmes reveals that the course is still not a compulsory component, similar to the findings of the previous studies (Hamalosmanoglu, Reference Hamalosmanoğlu2012; Shimray, Reference Shimray2016; Dull & Verma, Reference Dull and Verma2017). This suggests that EE is still not considered essential for all pre-service teachers.
The analysis of the three EE courses reveals a significant trend regarding the “orientation” of the courses. Environmental Education course emphasis on socio-scientific perspective, whereas PEVS and ESE course emphasised on social and pedagogical perspective. However, less focus on scientific principles, particularly the biophysical foundations of environmental issues, raises concerns about potentially fostering a superficial understanding of ecological principles and processes among prospective teachers. This contrasts with the findings of (Lucas, Reference Lucas1980, Reference Lucas1983; Dillon, Reference Dillon2023) that highlighted a prevalent overemphasis on scientific content within EE.
A significant finding across Environmental Education and ESE courses is the prevalence of an anthropocentric approach within some topics, with no integration of an ecocentric approach in any of the courses. This suggests a focus on human impact and well-being in understanding the environment. Furthermore, the content of all three courses does not address the theoretical frameworks of ecocentrism and anthropocentrism. Neglecting these philosophical perspectives may limit the ability of these courses to equip future teachers with the tools necessary to guide students in critically examining the complex ethical dilemmas inherent in environmental issues.
Also, variations in disciplinary perspective have been found across the courses. EE course demonstrates a strong commitment to both an inter and multidisciplinary approaches, while PEVS and ESE reflects interdisciplinary approach to explore environmental studies. This raises concerns about the potential impact on teacher preparedness, specifically teachers ability to relate EE with their own disciplinary areas and effectively address the complexity of EE.
EE, inherently a practice-based discipline, operates on a “small core, big periphery” (Lucas, Reference Lucas1972, Palmer, Reference Palmer1998) model emphasising experiential learning and aiming to bring a behavioural change towards the environment. Analysis of the assessment methods employed in the “Environmental Education,” “PEVS” and “ESE” courses reveals a concerning gap between the theoretical aspect and assessment practices. This implies a limited understanding of EE’s aims given within the courses.
An important finding pertains to the “responsiveness” of EE-related courses to contemporary environmental issues and concerns. It was observed that the current topics of EE, such as sustainable development, ESD, green practices, national-international initiatives and actions for conserving the environment, etc. either, could not find adequate space in the course (Taylor et al., Reference Taylor, Nathan and Coll2003) or were deliberately missed out by the curriculum developer to keep up the course duration. The three courses, having remained unrevised for a significant period, are misaligned with contemporary educational advancements, emerging ideas and vision outlined in the National Education Policy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India (2020), and the National Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage 2022 (NCERT, 2022). This implies an urgent need to update these courses to address the current demands of 21st-century education and equip teachers with the knowledge and skills to address pressing environmental challenges.
Conclusion and suggestions
This study addressed a significant research gap by analysing the status, orientation and responsiveness of environmental education courses within pre-service teacher education programmes in the Indian context — an interface that has received minimal scholarly attention. The study found that the “status” of the EE-related courses was not compulsory in all pre-service teacher education programmes. The courses that were analysed were not able to give a balanced “orientation” of pedagogical, epistemological and philosophical perspectives in their theoretical as well as practical components. The courses include most of the concepts, issues and contemporary environmental concerns in a very limited way. This shows that the courses are not able to reflect the evolving nature of EE vis-a-vis contemporary time.
Education has an instrumental role in addressing environment-related issues. The present research recommends that EE-related courses should become an integral and compulsory component of all pre-service teacher education programmes and should be offered as full credit papers. The courses should be developed in the light of diverse pedagogical perspectives (interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary), epistemological viewpoints (social, scientific and socio-scientific) and philosophical orientations (ecocentric and anthropocentric) so that they offer a comprehensive understanding to the prospective teachers. It is essential to move beyond the narrow association of EE with science alone and establish its cross-curricular relevance, so that prospective teachers across all subject areas can develop conviction towards EE. EE-related courses should be designed to make them understand nature and its evolution over the years. Involvement of research scholars and practitioners actively working in the area of environmental education would further ensure that courses are responsive to contemporary environmental concerns and issues.
Acknowledgements
The authors appreciate the constructive comments and feedback from anonymous reviewers and fellow peers which have helped us to improve our work.
Financial statement
No funding was received for this study.
Ethical standard
No ethical approval was required for this study.
Author Biographies
Shivali Gautam is a PhD scholar in Deparment of Education at the University of Delhi, passionately driven to elevate environmental awareness and action through education. Her research delves into the interconnected realms of environmental education, sustainability education, education for sustainable development and teacher education. Shivali’s expertise has been showcased on both national and international conference platforms, where she has shared her insights and findings. Her work reflects a deep commitment to fostering a future where education empowers individuals to become responsible stewards of the planet.
Yukti Sharma is a Professor at the Department of Education and Joint Director at the Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi. She has done M.Sc. (Botany) and M.Ed. in which she was a gold medallist from the University of Delhi. She is involved in teaching and guiding research in the areas of inclusive education, science education, environmental education, giftedness and creativity at the department. She has conducted several research projects that have been awarded by NCERT, New Delhi, and has presented papers at national and international conferences. She has authored textbooks, edited books and contributed chapters on education and science education for renowned publishers such as Macmillan, Pearson & Sage. She has also contributed towards MOOCs and OERs and is in the advisory as well as in the review committees of several organisations such as NCTE, NIOS, IGNOU, NCERT and CBSE. Currently, she is on one of the committees for the integrated Teacher education programme (ITEP) notified by NCTE. She has also been invited to give lectures in faculty development programmes (FDPs), seminars, webinars and in-service programmes for teachers from various universities/organisations nationwide.
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