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Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development (AJAD) - Call for papers!

Integration of Environmental Education for Sustainable Agriculture: Status in Tertiary Institutions and Guidelines for Institutional Policies and Curriculum Management

(Philippines), Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Administration (Universiti Putra Malaysia)

Dissertation Abstract:

 

The study aimed to (1) ascertain the current status of environmental education (EE) for sustainable agriculture (SA) in 12 selected tertiary institutions in Luzon, Philippines; and (2) develop a set of guidelines for institutional policies and curriculum management for the integration of EE into the curriculum for SA.

A questionnaire-guide interview of 27 educational administrators and 54 curriculum planners from the institutions was conducted for data collection. Data were analyzed by frequency counts, percentages, means, and standard deviations.

The status of the integration of EE into the curriculum for SA was rated by respondents as “medium” level. Tertiary institutions offered EE and SA as separate courses in their curricula and more EE courses were offered than SA courses.

Respondents agreed to support the implementation of a clearly defined policy for the integration of EE into the curriculum for SA. All (12) tertiary institutions have good number of qualified and available teaching staff. Teaching materials were available for appropriate teaching processes, although these must be further improved in terms of quantity and quality.

Based on the data obtained from the survey as well as literature review related to EE and SA, a set of guidelines for effective policy implementation was formulated.

The basic sequential considerations were identified, namely: (1) institutional diagnosis of plans and planning, (2) institutional development of strategies and programs of action, and (3) the ripple model of institutional policy making. Parameters of

importance were also identified and included to serve as guidelines for curriculum management. These were development and enrichment of the curriculum, plans of actions, provision of facilities, establishment of linkages, and monitoring and evaluation. To resolve the question of implementation, pointers were also included to guide tertiary institutions in selecting and adopting a suitable curriculum model for implementation and specification of content, through the identification of important features of curriculum management, and appropriate administrative approaches for offering EE and SA.