Understanding and teaching climate change in the Secondary Education Geography Curriculum in Swaziland

Abstract

Climate change education is globally recognised as a key approach through which to enhance the knowledge and understanding of climate change among learners and teachers. This study thus sought to investigate the understanding and teaching of climate change in the Secondary Education Geography Curriculum in Swaziland. The major goal of this study was to establish the understanding and teaching of climate change in the secondary education Geography curriculum of the country. To investigate the understanding and teaching of climate, the study employed an exploratory design comprising methods like questionnaire, focus group interviews as well as document analysis in the form of secondary records. The data was collected from 16 principals, 32 Geography teachers from 16 high schools; four from each region of Swaziland, one Senior Environmental Education Officer, one senior inspector of Geography and one senior Geography curriculum designer. Numerous gaps and misconceptions were found to exist in learners and teachers understanding of climate change education. The findings reflected that the teachers were not comfortable with the integration of climate change education into all the secondary education Geography curriculum lessons. However, they claimed to be unknowingly practising its integration to a limited extent. Although the teachers generally supported the integration of climate change education into the geography curriculum, they cited challenges like lack of proper training on climate change education, a shortage of teaching resources on CCE and the already overcrowded geography curriculum which then made it impossible for CCE integration. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Training need to train teachers on CCE both at in-service and pre-service level and providing the resources required for CCE, for instance, the internet and good libraries for research, since CCE requires perpetual learning.