Workshop on ‘Integrating National Nature Camp Initiative into the National School Education System’

Background

National Nature Camp Initiative (NNCI) Pilot Camp

Nepal has approximately 11,000 schools (Upper Primary /Middle). The need to strengthen nature based experience of school children and teachers cannot be over emphasised. With this in mind, ICIMOD, in collaboration with National Trust for Nature Conservation, organised a three day Nature Conservation Camp in Sauraha, Chitwan 28-30 January 2016. Shri Ratna Rajya Higher Secondary School — a school from Gurkha and at the epicentre of the devastating earthquake 25 April — was invited to attend. Altogether 25 students from the school attended along with two teachers from Gorkha and three from Chitwan.

As a one-off learning exercise, the camp’s objectives were to develop a long-term strategy to provide nature based experiences to all school children at least once in their school careers, and to collaborate in the future with similar campaigns across the country creating a national network. Another goal was to include similar activities in the national curriculum to encourage voluntary involvement in conservation.

The need was realised for a mechanism to upscale this concept to a national level. As a result, a workshop meeting for stakeholders, members of National Centre for Educational Development (NCED) and Curriculum Development Centre (CDC), national and international organisations, corporate and business sectors was recommended to integrate and leverage the Nature Camp Initiative. The workshop programme will be jointly organised by CDC, Ministry of Education (MoE) and ICIMOD.

Objectives

1. To give continuity to the pilot nature camp and upscaling this initiative to the national level
2. To solicit actions for integration of a nature camp concept in the national curriculum
3. To engage various stakeholders in making NNCI a collaborative endeavour
4. Develop an action plan for suggested actions

Participants

The workshop will be attended by officials from Ministry of Education (MoE), NCED, CDC, Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation (Department of Forest; Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation), various national and international organisations engaged with nature camping, and corporate sectors. Forty participants are expected for this half-day workshop.

Expected outcomes

1. A clear roadmap for integration of NNCI in the national curriculum or co-curriculum of schools
2. Roadmap for financial support for integration and skill development for taking NNCI forward
3. Final working committee and the terms of reference of the committee
4. Long term collaboration of the partners with the Ministry for Integration of NNCI