GUWAHATI: World Wide Fund for Nature, (WWF)-India will launch its pilot progamme, Ek Prithvi Assam here with an objective to inculcate conservation leadership among students residing on the forest fringes through education.
Assam will be the eighth state to have the pan-India programme.
Assam education minister, Siddhartha Bhattacharya will launch the WWF-India EkPrithviAssam programme in the presence of officials from the education and forest departments on February 19.
The Ek Prithvi Leadership Manual, 12 students workbooks and eight teachers manuals for classes I to XII, translated into Assamese, will also be released.
Developed for principals and master trainers, the publication focuses upon the importance of imbedding environment education in school.
The launch will be followed by a leadership and teacher training programme to be conducted by Radhika Suri, director, environmental education, WWF-India, New Delhi.
“The programme aims at building a generation of conservation leaders by raising awareness about environment, engaging them in conservation and building positive attitude towards a sustainable lifestyle,” WWF-India said in a statement issued here.
Eco trails. community work and eco-friendly practices are ways through which the programme seeks to generate awareness among students.
Expressing satisfaction at the initiative of WWF-India, education minister Bhattacharya, in a statement said the Ek Prithvi programme would bring education and conservation together in the minds of the children.
Archita Baruah Bhattacharyya, coordinator, WWF-India, Assam state office informed that the objective of the training programme was to steer the principals, teachers and trainers for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Ek Prithvi programme.
An MOU has already been signed by WWF-India and the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT)-Assam to take forward this Ek Prithvi programme in Assam.
For a start, the programme will empower over 1100 students of Morigaon district to become conservation leaders.