Education

The Education Cluster brings together NGOs, UN agencies, academics, and other partners under the shared goal of ensuring predictable, well coordinated and equitable provision of education for populations affected by humanitarian crises. It works to uphold education as a basic human right and core component of humanitarian response.

Educational activities provide a good opportunity to foster sustainability. Firstly, it is possible to foster environmental awareness through educational programs. Secondly, it is necessary to ensure that educational activities are carried out in an environmentally responsible manner. Specifically, facilities should be constructed in a durable manner, allowing them to provide a return on investment over years to come.

Environmental education

Educational activities in emergency settings can provide an important venue to:

• Foster awareness of the economic, social, political and ecological interdependencies in a particular context
• Provide people with the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment
• Create new patterns of behaviour among individuals, groups and society as a whole

Environmental education can be offered as part of the formal school curriculum, as an extracurricular activity (through clubs or events), and through non-formal educational activities. Environmental education activities should be undertaken as part of the overall educational programme. Activities should be designed in close cooperation between environmental and educational specialists.

Suggested environmental education activities include:

• Identifying people within the response and national structures who are (or could be) involved in environmental education
• Assessing environmental education needs and developing trainings and activities to cover these, for example by modifying the existing curricula
• Facilitating the development or improvement of environmental education materials
• For environmental actors: providing guidance to educational counterparts on environmental education, providing resources and offering to train counterparts
• In refugee or internal displacement situations where environmental education
  programmes are being implemented in camps: establishing programmes for neighbouring populations and/or conducting joint educational activities

Environmentally sound design and management of educational facilities

Environmentally sound design and management of educational facilities facilitates learning,  safeguards the health and safety of students, reinforces basic hygiene behaviors for better public health; and assures the sustainability and durability of school facilities. Failure to address environmental issues may result in schools becoming transmission points for disease or pose risks to people by being physically unsafe. Additionally, it might lead to schools becoming unusable or requiring rehabilitation too soon. To this end it is important to:

• Site, design and choose materials that are responsive to local environmental conditions
• Manage the construction process in an environmentally sound manner
• Minimize environmental contamination through well-designed and maintained waste management and sanitation facilities
• Provide safe, adequate water supplies

For detailed guidance, refer to (for example) the USAID sector environmental guidelines for primary and secondary schools.

School projects should also include efforts to moderate climate-related risks and vulnerabilities, thereby advancing the long-term project success. Examples of adaptive actions include the consideration of increased flood risk in drainage plans and intense heat waves when choosing construction methods. Project design should also assess the potential greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts of a project, and implement cost-effective strategies and actions that minimize these.