- Nominated Senator Abshiro Halake said there’s a need for teachers and school administrators to be equipped with knowledge on climate education.
- Muranga Senator Irungu Kangata said climate change is in the global north that is in Europe, America and China.
Image: ANDREW KASUKU
Climate education could soon be included in the Competency-Based Curriculum if a proposal by senators is adopted.
Senators want the education curriculum to factor in climate education to assist students in improving their understanding of climate change.
This, they say will also allow individuals to protect the environment and take action by crafting community-level solutions.
Nominated Senator Abshiro Halake who fronted the motion said there’s a need for teachers and school administrators to be equipped with knowledge on climate education.
"A very big opportunity exists for us in this country to integrate climate education at this time of transition to the CBC curriculum," she said.
Halake said climate challenge requires global action to jointly deal with the circumstance.
“The Senate calls upon the Council of Governors whose responsibility is ECD and basic education, as well as the Education ministry, all the way to higher learning, to integrate climate education in schools," she said.
The senator said relevant stakeholders should offer adequate training to the teachers.
“To teach climate education and streamline it into the CBC curriculum for a competent nation that can take climate action,” she said.
Nominated Senator Gertrude Musuruve said integration of climate education should start from the top, trickling down.
This means implementation should be rolled out starting from institutions of higher learning that is universities and TVETs.
"When students go to colleges and universities, they actually surrender to those institutions so that they acquire value,” Musuruve said.
She said when students complete their courses, they are given back to society as fully-fledged citizens.
The senator said inclusion of key stakeholders in the education sector is important to front the implementation of this idea.
“It is important for Halake to bring in KICD as curriculum developers because they will do an evaluation of the material that goes to the ground” she said.
Musuruve said there is also need to bring in universities and colleges to deliberately have a unit or two on climate change.
If this is adopted, climate education will be made a common unit just like communication skills and HIV/AIDS.
Musuruve, however, disputed Halake’s plan to include the CoG.
She said the COG's mandate only falls within the ECD level. Primary school to university is delegated to the Education ministry.
Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata seconded the motion but had his reservation saying climate change is not an African problem.
He said this problem is better remedied by the people who have caused climate change, the westerners.
“I will start by expressing my reservation to the entire climate change advocacy. About 80 per cent of people who cause climate change are not in the global south,” Kangata said.
The senator said climate change is in the global north that is in Europe, America and China.
“Therefore, the carbon footprint of Africans is almost zero. Ideally, the people who should be explaining to us why they have caused the climate to change are the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and not Africans,” Kangata said.
However, Halake faulted Kangata for misleading Kenyans that climate change is not an African problem.
“It might be caused elsewhere and we do not have scientific factors of the contributions of the footprint but should we not prevent it before we become part of the problem.
“Is he in order to say it is a Chinese problem and we Africans should not be doing anything about it, yet it affects us more than it does to the people who cause it?” she said.
In his defence, Kangata said a comparison of Africa’s footprint with Europe, reveals that Africa’s footprint is negligible.
“It is very minimal. If you Google and look for articles in peer review journals, they indicate clearly the carbon footprint in Africa,” he said.
According to Kangata, scientists disclosed that highly industrialised societies are more prone to causing climate change.
These societies, he said, have huge industrial bases, produce oil and have many cars.
“One of the problems I have with the entire climate change discourse is its failure to compel those people who advance by damaging the environment to pay those of us who are yet developed,” Kangata said.
He however, lauded Senator Halake for the motion, which he says will take us back to the state of nature.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)