Training workshop on sustainability and environmental citizenship

Muscat: The Ministry of Education organised a workshop on sustainability and environmental citizenship.

The workshop was presented by Dr Basma al Riyami, citizenship specialist at the Department of Citizenship. The programme included several topics, including introducing green education, teaching mechanisms for green education, and greening the curriculum, which includes updating the current curricula to include content that reflects the concepts of environmental preservation and sustainability, in addition to developing new curricula that focuses on these issues, with the aim of enhancing environmental awareness and social responsibility among students, enabling them to make informed and responsible decisions towards the environment and society, developing critical thinking skills, solving problems related to the environment, promoting teamwork, and innovation in finding sustainable solutions to environmental challenges.

Trainees were trained in the skills necessary to green curricula, carried out practical applications of some of these skills, and reviewed the efforts made by the Ministry of Education in green education. The trainees were also introduced to the concepts of environmental citizenship, environmental sustainability, and mechanisms for integrating and including these concepts in the school curricula. The workshop also addressed strategies and methods through which students can develop decision-making skills regarding environmental problems, through reviewing a set of teaching strategies, training in formulating, and developing educational activities to develop decision-making. This is based on the belief in the importance and necessity of paying attention to preparing a generation of individuals who have the ability to understand the environmental problems surrounding them and make decisions in accordance.

The implementation of this workshop came in line with the strategic directions of the priorities of the future Oman Vision 2040 in creating a society that is proud of its identity and culture and committed to its citizenship, protecting the environment, and sustaining its natural resources. It also came within the objectives of the Department of Citizenship, which is to raise the level of partnership between the relevant authorities inside and outside the Ministry to enhance the values of responsible citizenship and sustainable development concepts.

It is also a continuation of the series of efforts made by the Ministry of Education to instil values and environmental principles among young people, that falls under the concept of green education, which aims to integrate the principles of sustainability and environmental preservation into teaching and learning processes; an approach to education that focuses on including the concepts of sustainability and environmental protection in the curricula, stimulate awareness of environmental issues, and encourage sustainable behaviours in society.