Event Highlights: KIX EMAP Webinar 21: Climate Change and Education in Southeast Asia and the Pacific
On Wednesday, 27 November 2024, KIX EMAP hosted Webinar 21 on “Climate Change and Education in Southeast Asia and the Pacific”. The webinar was attended by over 170 participants from the EMAP region and beyond.
José Luís Canêlhas, KIX EMAP Hub Director, opened the webinar and shared an overview of the KIX EMAP Hub. Aditi Desai, KIX EMAP Knowledge Lead for Southeast Asia, then introduced the six speakers and the agenda for the webinar.
The first speaker was Sarah Beardmore, Strategic Partnerships and Capabilities Team Lead, Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Sarah’s presentation “Towards Climate-Smart Education Systems: GPE’s Framework for Action” focused on the impact of the climate change crisis on education, and highlighted GPE’s work in the area of climate change. She also provided an overview of GPE’s support to Cambodia in implementing evidence-based climate adaptation efforts in the education sector.
The next speaker, Radhika Iyengar, Director of Education, Center for Sustainable Development, Earth Institute, Columbia University, presented “Looking for “Sustainable Development” in the United States?”. Her input focused on examining the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals into education in the United States.
Through her presentation titled “Education – addressing the climate crisis (Case Studies – Fiji & Tuvalu)”, Rosiana Lagi, Deputy Head of School (Learning, Teaching and Quality), School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education, The University of the South Pacific, explained the impacts of climate change on the Vanua and Fenua of Oceania. She also outlined the role of higher education in addressing climate change with an example from Fiji, and the responsibility everyone plays to collaboratively address climate change.
The next speaker, Subarna Sivapalan, Associate Professor & Head of the School of Education, University of Nottingham Malaysia, shared her experiences of integrating environmental education and education for sustainable development into formal education systems in Malaysian schools through her presentation titled “Mainstreaming Climate Change Education and Education for Sustainable Development in Malaysia: Aligning Stakeholder Expectations”.
Stien Matakupan, Special Project and Project Advisors, Pusat Study Pendidikan dan Kebijakan (PSPK) (Center for Education Research and Policy), explained through “Climate Change Education in Indonesia” how her organisation, PSPK was working on research, advocacy and implementation to improve climate change education in Indonesia, including curricular reforms aimed at increasing climate understanding and collective action, and the development of resources and support for teachers.
The final speaker, Do Duc Lan, Head of International Cooperation Division, The Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, Ministry of Education and Training, shared his presentation “Climate Change and Education in Viet Nam,” in which he provided an overview of the context of climate change in Vietnam, before delving into the state of climate change in curriculum, and providing recommendations to further improve the integration and delivery of climate change education.
Each speaker’s presentation was followed by a Q&A session, moderated in turns by Adit Desai, José Luís Canêlhas, and Marina Dreux Frotté, KIX EMAP Education Policy, Evaluation and Learning Lead. After a final round of questions and discussion following the speaker presentations, Aditi concluded Webinar 21 by highlighting the criticality of this area, especially in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and thanking all the speakers and audience members for their participation.
The KIX EMAP Hub will continue the knowledge sharing and exchange on this topic through channels and formats best suited to the needs of the KIX EMAP national teams.