Climate change to be introduced in school curricula

State-owned National Power Corp. (Napocor) together with the Presidential Task Force on Climate Change (PTFCC) and the Department of Education (DepEd) recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to promote awareness among schoolchildren on global climate change and the relative issues surrounding it.

The MOU was signed by PTFCC chairman and Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus, and Napocor president Cyril Del Callar, who was represented by senior vice president Silvano Zanoria last March 31.

The MOU specifically aims to integrate in the school curriculum the subject or topic on climate change.

In this way, the government will be able to instill in the Filipino school youth the value and significance of climate change and its impact and consequences.

The MOU is also one of the instruments that reflect the government’s commitment to uphold, promote and respect the right of each Filipino to be made aware of climate change and its impact on the environment, specifically of extreme weather events, and to guarantee the safety of communities especially those living in disaster prone areas.

For this purpose, the DepEd and PTFCC have been assigned very important and critical roles, particularly in the dissemination of information on climate change, beginning with the school youth.

On the other hand, Napocor, through its Watershed Management Department, in order to ensure effective compliance with its mandate of ensuring watershed protection and management, must educate and make people aware of climate change issues and concerns.

Through the MOU, the three agencies will address some major areas of concern that include: Curriculum Development, which targets the inclusion of the topic of climate change in the school curriculum, preferably in Sibika and Science, of the two levels of education: elementary and secondary.

It will also include non-formal education; training and capability building through the conduct of seminars and workshops on climate change before the start of every school year for various school levels, for teachers and all possible participants and players in the educational community following the regular process of curriculum development workshop and writeshop.

The agreement will also call for the monitoring, research and evaluation to regularly update, research, documentation, and development of climate change instructional materials through the conduct of information campaign through sensitivity trainings and consciousness-raising activities directed at the education community.

Other activities also include annual assessment and evaluation of short and long-term effects of the inclusion of climate change in the curriculum and, among others, the identification of problems, issues, and solutions in its implementation.

The group will also conduct regional and national conferences on the teaching of climate change; development and formulation of resource base ICT portal for students and teachers on climate change; and the preparation and production of instructional materials including audio-visual and other teaching and learning aids for both formal and non-formal education.

Coordination with the legislative and the executive towards the institutionalization of climate change as part of the education curriculum, and establishment of linkages with local and international non-government organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) will also be undertaken.

To ensure the smooth implementation of this agreement, a PTFCC-DEPED-Napocor Implementing Committee has been created to be headed by the Executive Director of PTFCC, an Undersecretary of the DEPED, and the Manager of the Napocor Watershed Management Department.