Provide environmental training to teachers, states told

"Environment education has become mandatory in the educational curriculum, but a comprehensive programme of training teachers for the same has not (not) been followed up," R Mehta, Advisor to Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), said during a conference.
"We may have textbooks, but unless teachers are given proper orientation to convey this educational material, the entire exercise will not be effective," he told delegates of 8th Global Conference on Environment Education 2009 here.

The four-day conference has been organised by the Indian Environmental Society. Besides India, delegates from countries like Thailand, Saudi Arabia, USA and Slovenia are taking part in the meet.
Efforts are on to bring all the stakeholders together to provide orientation to the teachers, who will give classroom training to the students, Mehta said.
He said the MoEF has written to the state governments asking them to provide assistance, both in terms of finance and technical, to take up this training programme. "The Ministry has promised partial financial help and they should provide the training within a certain time-frame."