ALIGARH: Environmental experts and academicians discussed different aspects of environmental education and stressed the need to develop students’ awareness of different ways and means of conservation to protect the earth from degradation during a seminar national online “Environmental Education” organized by Department of Education, Aligarh Muslim University to mark World Environment Day.
In his presidential address, the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor Nisar Ahmad Khan, stressed the need to integrate population, environment and natural resource policies into national development strategies to ensure sustainable development .
“There is no doubt that development is the need of the hour, but it should not come at the expense of environmental sustainability. Students need to be educated about different ways to bring sustainable practices and universities have a bigger role to play in this,” he said.
Guest speaker, Prof. MTV Nagaraju (Dean of Education Faculty, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University) highlighted the importance of environmental education and highlighted the role of teachers in changing student behavior towards conservation of the environment. He pointed out that the full development of an individual’s personality depends on the type of physical and social environment that persists around him.
Another guest speaker, Prof. M Govindan (Head of Department of Educational Psychology, Tamil Nadu Teacher Education University) said that efforts should be made at the institutional level not only to sensitize students on environmental issues but also to endowing them with environmental values. and skills to safeguard their environment and solve ecological problems.
Welcoming the guests, Prof. Mujibul Hasan Siddiqui (Chairman of the Department of Education and Director of the National Seminar) stressed that proactive efforts are needed from everyone involved in education to bring about positive change. in the environment and to achieve this goal, training courses for teachers and administrators must take place regularly at different levels of the education system
In her closing remarks, the leader of the seminar, Professor Nasrin, said that good management of the environment is vital and that it is important to harmonize the relationship between the environment and man in order to improve the quality of the environment and of human society. She also offered a vote of thanks.