Environmental Education in the Age of Environmental Degradation: A Comparative Study of Elementary Level Students of Delhi and Dhaka

Environmental education is considered to be a continuous and lifelong process that can be learnt through formal or informal ways. The basic assumption behind introducing environmental education as a part of the formal education system from the early 1970s has been to change human knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards the environment through formal education. Against this assumption, the introduction of environmental education at the elementary level studies has been considered to be the beginning of formal environmental education to deal with environmental challenges facing by today’s society. The present paper focuses on the effectiveness of environmental education provided at the elementary level studies in two of the fastest growing capital cities of South Asia: Delhi and Dhaka, which are currently facing tremendous challenges. A specially designed questionnaire has been used to collect data from both government and private elementary schools by applying a purposive sampling technique. The findings suggest that students’ environmental knowledge is not adequately translated into environmental attitude and behaviour. There is thus a need to re-assess the designing of the course curricula and selection of the study methods and materials used for environmental education for the elementary level students to make environmental education more effective for the younger generations.


Introduction
Man is an intrinsic part of the nature [1]. But due to mainly anthropogenic reasons man-environment relationship has become fragile over the last several decades, particularly from the beginning of the second half of the 20 th century. The severity and intensity of this fragility have increased manyfold in recent years due to changes in human attitude, behaviour and perception towards the environment and because of the emergence of consumerism. Hundreds of seminars, conferences and workshops have been organized to debate, discuss and identify the reasons, their potential solutions at academic and policy levels. , among others, have laid down important landmarks in dealing with environmental challenges. It is not that the world couldn't have achieved any positive outcome of these initiatives, but there is a need to do more to face the multi-dimensional environmental challenges as they are posing serious threats to human life and the very survival itself. Among possible means to fight environmental degradation, environmental education is considered to be a very effective instrument that can play significant role in changing people's knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards the environment. Environmental education is the process of recognizing values and classifying concepts in order to develop skills and attitudes necessary to understand and appreciate the inter-relatedness among man, his culture and biophysical surroundings. Environmental education also entails practice in decision making and self formulation of a code of behavior about issues concerning environmental quality [7]. It is thus important that countries design effective environmental education, particularly with a focus to school children and educate them on environmental benefits and also make them aware about their duties and responsibilities towards the environment [10].
Although the introduction of environmental education as a course curricula is a recent phenomenon, almost across developed and developing countries considering the recentness of the gravity of environmental challenges, many countries have successfully designed environmental education for both school and post-school education. The basic philosophy behind the introduction of environmental education has been to educate learners about environmental degradation and their consequences on the nature and human interests. It is assumed that through environmental education, learners' will have gradual changes in their behavior and attitude towards the environment [3,5,6]. Countries which have introduced environmental education in this context also need to assess the effectiveness of such programmes and their suitability of changing learners' behaviour and attitude towards the nature.
South Asia, being one of the fragile regions due to environmental degradation, needs to think about effective measures to control them. Most South Asian countries, including India and Bangladesh (which are the two environmentally vulnerable most countries), have introduced relevant courses/ chapters on environmental education in their school course curricula. But how far these initiatives are effective in dealing with the pre-determined objective of changing human knowledge, attitude and behavior towards nature remains untested. It is sometimes really difficult to evaluate learners' knowledge, attitude and behaviour as these not only be influenced from formal course curricula, but also are often attached to learning from the surroundings, media, friends, families and society as a whole. With these challenges in mind, a comparative study between schoolgoing children of two similar South Asian cities, Delhi and Dhaka, has been designed to assess and evaluate learners' knowledge, attitude and behavior towards nature. It is expected that findings from this study would help us to understand the nature and extent of changes in learners' knowledge, attitude and behavior towards nature.

Environmental Education: The India-Bangladesh Context
Environmental education involves teaching about value judgment and the ability to think clearly about complex problems about the environment as they are technical. It is the educational process dealing with man's relationship with the natural and man-made surroundings, including the relation of population, resource allocation and depletion, conservation, transportation, technology and urban and rural planning to the total human environment. Environmental education aims to enable people to enjoy good health and a high quality of life, it is vital to prevent harmful effects to human health or damage to the environment in the form of air, water, soil and noise pollution, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, etc. caused by firms and individuals. In this way, environmental education motivates civil action and individual code in regard of environmental quality and economic development.
Environmental consciousness and environmentally responsive behavior among the masses across the South Asian countries are found to be quite poor due to a number of reasons, including poverty, poor education and awareness, cultural habit or simply ignorance about the need for conserving the nature. This necessitates the states to come up and design number of measures to deal with the issue environmental degradation and develop civic responsibilities towards the nature. These include constitutional, policy and legal provisions, awareness generation, introducing course curricula at different academic levels, working at the grassroots among the vulnerable people develop their resilience capacities to cope up with the changed environment, etc. India or Bangladesh is no different than other South Asian countries in this regard.
The Article 51A of the Constitution of India states, "it shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and to improve the natural environment, including forest, lakes, rivers and wild life and to have compassion for the living creatures". Similarly, the Kothari Commission (1964) realized the importance of environmental education and recommended that environmental activities would lead to the study of physical sciences, natural sciences, geography, history and civics; construction and creative skills would serve as the basis of simple art and crafts and practice of healthy living would serve as the foundation of environmental education. The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in India in 1975 revised the curriculum of schools and introduced environmental education at primary level. At secondary and higher secondary levels, a few chapters on environmental aspects were included in geography and biology. The National Policy on Education (NPE) in 1986 also emphasized that there is a paramount need to create a consciousness of the environment. Later on, a number of initiatives were also taken to introduce environmental education as part of formal course curricula in India at different stages to make learners environmentally aware and also made them behave accordingly. The honourable Supreme Court of India in the year 2003 directed all educational institutions to introduce environment as a subject and also make it compulsory for all schools so that students can get a chance to understand the nature and the need for its management and preservation. There is no other option, but to introduce environmental education for the young learners to get them prepared to face the reality with efficiency. In order to achieve this objective, the NCERT prepared a National Curriculum Similarly, Bangladesh too gives much priority for environmental issues. Under the 15 th Amendment in 2011, the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh in the Article 18A states, "the State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to preserve and safeguard the natural resources, bio-diversity, wetlands, forests and wildlife for the present and future citizens". Similarly, [9] emphasizes on the need "to build students as skilled human resources to fight the challenges of the world threatened by climate change and other natural disasters and to create in them a social awareness about environment". Similarly, according to [11], "environmental education would be imparted to the teachers and students at all levels of education and specific measures must be undertaken to ensure participation of women at every level of education", while [5] pointed out that environmental education would: (i) eradicate illiteracy and create widespread mass awareness regarding the protection of the environment and utilization of all national resources in a sustainable and environmentally sound manner; (ii) ensure inclusion and dissemination of environmental knowledge and information in the formal and non-formal systems of education and the media; (iii) encourage spontaneous and active participation of people in all environmental activities; (iv) incorporate environmental issues in all training programs for public and private sector officials and employees, including industrial and commercial workers; (v) encourage necessary research and evolve technology so as to ensure long term, sustainable and environmentally sound utilization of all resources; and (vi) ensure that environmental issues get due consideration in all research activities by research and development institutions.
School education in Bangladesh comprises three distinct streams of education, i.e. general education, madrasha (Islamic academic system) education and technical/vocational education systems. In Bangladesh despite a clear recommendation by [9] on offering elementary level education (up to class eight) by primary schools, the schools still offer primary (up to class five) and junior secondary level education (six to eight) separately; while in India up to class eight (elementary) education is provided by same schools. Environmental education at elementary level schools in Bangladesh is covered in two main subjects: 'general science' and 'social science'. It is understood that environmental aspects of education have been described in the course curricula mostly from a knowledge point of view or more correctly from a subjective perspective (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.), but has not been introduced in an interactive manner-i.e. manenvironment relationship. Emerging environmental issues such as climate change and human adaptations, however, did not receive any attention at all, and is missing [2]. In India, the textbooks for environmental studies which are prepared by NCERT has taken the cross curricular approach to teaching environmental concepts through language, mathematics about the environment. In classes I and II there is no separate environmental studies (EVS) book. For classes III and IV, environmental studies (EVS) textbooks are available. Environmental education has been further reinforced under the art of healthy and productive living (AHPL) for which a single teacher's handbook has been developed for classes I to V. The NCERT textbooks of 'Science' and 'Social Science' for class six to eight standards have incorporated most important environmental concepts in the textbooks.
As mentioned, the basic objectives of introducing environmental education at school levels have been to educate learners about environmental challenges, change their attitude towards the environment and behave accordingly. But how far these objectives are met is an issue to evaluate critically. In this context, a comparative assessment of the environmental education provided at the elementary in the two neighbouring countries having almost similar state of their environment and environmental challenges may help us in understanding their effectiveness and introducing required modification, if needed. With this objective in mind, the present paper tries to evaluate critically the state of the environmental education provided at the elementary level schools in India and Bangladesh and assess their effectiveness.

Sample Characteristics and Data Sources
A comparative analysis of the state of environmental education provided at the elementary level schools of Delhi and Dhaka is a gigantic task considering the number of government and private schools and collecting data from them using a representative sampling technique. Considering all schools offer the same syllabus prescribed by the respective government and not much difference can be found in terms of students' environmental knowledge, attitude and behavior, this study has thus used a purposive sampling technique for the collection of data from the two cities. It has employed a sample size of 200 students, equally drawing from both government and private-run elementary schools and from Delhi and Dhaka. It means that from each city 100 questionnaires have been filled by selecting 50 students each from government and private schools in 2016 to assess their differences in environmental knowledge, attitude and behaviour.

Designing the Survey Questionnaires
The study employed primary data collected by using a specially designed questionnaire, although the relevant secondary information was also collected for supporting the findings from the primary survey. For collecting data from the two different cities, certain modifications were made. Both the versions of the questionnaires contained almost similar type of questions, except for a few country-specific issues. For the benefit of the students, questionnaires were also translated in local languages i.e. Hindi for India and Bangla for Bangladesh.
The questionnaires had three major parts, besides having a brief introduction containing students' name, age, sex and school identity. These are: a. Student's Environmental Knowledge; b. Student's Attitudinal Responses towards Environment; and c. Student's Environmental/ Ecological Behaviours Data were collected from class V to VIII level students only as environmental studies/education before class V are not offered in a systematic manner either in social science or science paper. For collecting data, a few students from each class were selected randomly and an in-person data collection method was followed. Students were initially provided with the required information for the purpose of the study and what they need to do to minimize errors, including nonresponse related problem.

Techniques for Data Analysis
For analyzing data collected through questionnaire surveys from Delhi and Dhaka, descriptive analytical tools (e.g. percentage, ratio, etc.) with Pearson's coefficient of correlation and'paired t-test' techniques have been used to assess and differentiate students' environmental knowledge, attitude and behavior between the two cities.

Descriptive Analysis
Before analyzing details about the possible differences of environmental knowledge, attitude and behavior of the elementary level students of the two selected cities, data have been assessed and compared in terms of their major sociodemographic indicators. The above table (table-1) clearly indicates that the students are by and large from the similar age-groups which in reality can also be justified as 14 years is an ideal age group for eighth standard students. Similarly, students selected from both the cities have almost similar type of sex ratio from both government and as well as privately-owned elementary schools. This implies that the expected outcomes in their responses can be judged according to other factors rather than age and sex differences, which are not expected to influence their variation much.

Environmental Knowledge
Major characteristics of the elementary students surveyed from both the countries and from both government and privately run schools are presented in various tables in the following sections: The table (table-2) presents data collected through the primary survey conducted in different elementary schools from Dhaka city. A careful analysis of the above data reveals that the overall performance of the students is not that satisfactory. Suppose, the general question related to the famous environmental activist Syeda Rizwana Hassan in Bangladesh is not very well-known among the elementary students as only 25% of the overall students could answer it correctly. The question related to the noise pollution is another example that receipts very poor response from the students. This indicates that many of the generic environmental issues are not well-known to the students. But many of the questions that frequently get placed in social science and general science textbooks in Bangladesh have got relatively higher scores. For example, questions about the environment, climate change, etc. have higher correct responses. Further, differences between government and private schools can also be seen quite clearly in a number of cases. This indicates the difference in students' knowledge on the environment between government and private elementary schools in Dhaka city. In the case of Delhi, it can be seen an almost similar tendency in the students' responses (table-3). Most of the environmental awareness related questions have got somewhat poor responses from the students, whereas questions from their textbook topics received better responses. Another important issue that demands attention is the differences between government schools and private schools in their performances. For example, what is environment has a highly different response rate between the two types of schools in Delhi. This can be related to the level of attention given by a school and also students admitted from different socio-economic backgrounds. It is assumed that generally most government schools are attended by students from weak socio-economic backgrounds who hardly can afford the expensive private schools. Students from weaker backgrounds are also expected to have limited access to extra-curricular activities and media exposures and thus have lesser possibility of developing their environmental knowledge. Such outcomes are thus not unexpected. The findings suggest that on an average a student from Delhi has a higher environmental knowledge than Dhaka. Of the 15 questions, 10 have higher scores for Delhi; while the remaining 5 questions have shown higher values for schools from Dhaka (table-4). This can be traced to the reasons that environmental educations provided at the elementary level classes in Delhi are thought to be better than Dhaka. Socioeconomic factors and their roles in this difference can also be a possible reason behind these differences. The test statistics presented in the table-5 above indicates that the average environmental knowledge score for Delhi students significantly higher than Dhaka, although data on Delhi also have greater variability as indicated by the higher standard deviation value. It implies that students from Delhi are endowed with higher knowledge about environmental issues and challenges, which can be attributed to favourable course curricula as well as better non-academic learning opportunities on environmental knowledge. But the paired ttest values for the two data sources indicate that there is no strong and significant difference between the level of environmental knowledge between students of Dhaka and Delhi (table-6). This means that although Delhi shows a higher environmental knowledge than Dhaka, but the difference is not statistically significant and thus any difference between the two city's students' environmental attitude and behavior may not be attributed much of their state of environmental knowledge.

Environmental Attitude
Experts opine that people's attitude towards the nature can significantly be influenced by their learning and education. It is against this understanding that the study has tried to identify whether environmental education among the elementary students in Dhaka and Delhi have any impact on their environmental attitude. Further, their responses have also been scrutinized to assess any possible difference between responses' from two cities. The following two tables (one each from Bangladesh and India) have shown the results. The above table (table-7) describes the average scores of environmental attitude of the students from various private and government schools of Dhaka. Although it is not that easy for these data to understand the exact differences between the two groups, out of the 15 questions asked on environmental attitude 10 are found to have higher scores for private schools than the government schools for Dhaka city. It gives a gross picture of the comparability between two sets of attitudinal answers. The average figures for private, government and all schools together are found to be 57, 55 and 56 out of maximum 200, respectively.  almost all the questions. In both the cases, the maximum and minimum values range from 5 to 0. The findings suggest that students' environmental attitudes were not really up to the mark and there is a need to look into the matter more seriously. Table-9 above shows the similar type of attitudinal questions for Delhi. In the case of Delhi, 10 out of the 15 questions exhibited higher average scores for private schools, while only 3 government schools showed better scores compared to private schools. This implies that private schools are better performers than government schools, which in reality are also found to maintain higher standards in their educational and co-curricular activities. The overall average score is estimated to be 60.53 out of the maximum possible score of 200. In the case of mean and standard deviation values estimated against each question on environmental attitude for Delhi, the outcomes are quite different. Out of the 15 questions, 10 have shown higher values for Delhi. It means that only the other three have higher values in Dhaka (table-10). This implies that students' environmental attitude is quite different in nature from the two cities. In the case of environmental attitude, the overall statistics suggest that the two average values are highly correlated with a value of 0.87 and very high level of significance. But the mean of scores for the two cities is quite different: Delhi has a higher average score than Dhaka (table-11). On the other hand, the estimated t-value indicates that there is a strong and significant difference in the environmental attitude of the two selected groups (table-12). Similarly, the paired t-test values for the two sets of data indicate that there is a strong and significant difference between the level of environmental attitude of the students of Dhaka and Delhi (table-13). This means that differences in the attitudinal values for two cities' elementary students are statistically significant. This means that attitude of the elementary level students of Delhi are more environmental-friendlier than Dhaka and are also expected to be reflected in their behavior.

Environmental Behaviour
Environmental education and attitude are perceived to influence the environmental behaviour of the learners. As education increases pupils' knowledge base and thus influences learners' attitudes and behaviours. The following two tables under this section have tried to analyze students' environmental behaviours which are the prime concern for providing environmental education at all levels, and particularly at elementary level students. From a careful look over the table-14 can make us understand that the scores of the privately run schools for 9 questions are higher than the government schools, while 2 questions exhibited same figures. It means that the remaining 4 answers and their average scores are larger for government schools than the selected private schools in Dhaka city.  In Delhi, it is found that private schools have scored fairly better than their counterparts. Out of the fifteen behavioural questions, nine are having higher scores of private schools in Delhi than government schools, while the average score for private and government schools are found to be about 76 and 70, respectively. This once again indicates that private schools have done fairly better if compared with government schools in Delhi (table-16). It can be argued that most private schools in Delhi maintain a better educational standards and extra-curricular activities than their government counterparts. Higher scoring by private schools in this context is in line with the 'a priori' expectation.  In the case of environmental behaviour, the overall statistics suggest that the two average values representing Dhaka and Delhi are highly correlated with a value of 0.85 and the perfect level of significance (table-19). The means of the average scores for the two cities are also found to be quite close to each other. It implies that the collected information from India and Bangladesh support a weak and insignificant relationship between their respective environmental behavior. Finally, the estimated 't' with a poor 'p' value indicates that there is a weak and insignificant difference in the estimated environmental behaviours of the two selected groups (table-20). This implies that although environmental knowledge and environmental attitude are found to be higher in Delhi compared to Dhaka, in reality environmental behavior by the selected elementary level students of the two cities are almost similar in nature.

Conclusion
The findings from the comparative analysis of the two cities from two neighbouring countries with different level of formal environmental education at elementary level studies suggest that despite the selected elementary-level students' environmental knowledge and attitude for Delhi schools are found to be better than Dhaka, their environmental behavior are not significantly different. It shows a missing link between environmental knowledge, attitude and behavior in this context. The very purpose of introducing environmental education at elementary-level classes to influence learners' behavior seems to be remained unfulfilled. Such findings are not uncommon in literature [5; 8] This demands an assessment of the designing of course curricula, developing study materials, and teaching methods, which may have failed to influence learners to behave in a pre-determined manner. It should also be kept in mind that in today's digitized age students not only learn from their textbooks and institutional environment, print and electronic media, social networks, and the environment around play quite vital roles in shaping their knowledge, attitude and behavior. Considering environmental degradation for both the countries is a serious development challenge, which may only get exaggerated if required steps are not taken in time, making the younger generations environmentally-responsible citizens has no viable alternative. It is thus important that effective environmental education is introduced at elementary-level studies that may make real impacts on environmentally responsible attitude and behavior of young learners.