Paryavaran Mitra Teacher's Training organized by ENVIS
November 23, 2013: ENVIS Centre, Forests, Environment & Wildlife Management Department organized a day long Paryavaran Mitra Teacher’s training programme on 23rd of November 2013 at forest conference hall in Deorali. The inaugural session of the programme was chaired by PCCF-cum-Principal Secretary Shri Arvind Kumar, PCCF (Environment) Dr. Anil Mainra, Spl PCCF-cum PD (SBFP) Shri S.B.S.Bhaduaria and CCF(Environment) Shri B.K.Tewari.
The training was held to provide basic guidelines in promoting handprint actions, especially the action towards environmental sustainability at school level based on the Paryavaran Mitra teacher’s handbook prepared by CEE in compliance to National Council of Education Research (NCERT). The handbook is also linked to the syllabus of National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 for elementary level i.e Std VI, VII and VIII. The training programme was attended by around 100 teachers of primary, junior, secondary and senior sec. schools selected from all over the State.
The Chief Conservator of Forests (Environment) Shri B. K. Tewari welcomed all the participating teachers and resource persons from Centre for Environment Education (CEE) Guwahati and Gangtok office namely, Ms. Himashree Battacharya, Dr. Pranjiv Goswami and Ms. Meghna Thapa. In his welcome address, he mentioned about implementation of State award scheme, the Chief Minister’s Green School Rolling Trophy and encouraged the participants for positive environment action with meaningful commitments.
Dr. Panjiv Goswami from CEE in his key note address mentioned that Paryavaran Mitra is a nationwide initiative to create a network of two crore young Indians from school across the country who have the awareness, knowledge, commitment and potential to meet the challenges of environmental sustainability in their own sphere of influence. The vision of the programme is to make the school, the class rooms, home and the community as place where the students can be engaged in exploring, discovering, thinking, sharing and also in understanding positive action for environmental sustainability. The teacher training is essential to update the skills regarding environment sustainability, he added.
PCCF (Environment) Dr. Anil Mainra, in his address, mentioned about the role of a teacher as the key facilitator and motivator of the programme.
PCCF-cum-Principal Secretary Shri Arvind Kumar, in his address, said the students are the prime focus of this programme as their commitment to make difference will reflect in practices at schools, home or in the community. The success of the programme rest upon the support and guidance of the teachers and commitment in taking up this programme activity in the class will encourage active participation of all the students, he said. He also enlightened on the prevalence of peace and tranquility in the State and the people’s eco-friendly and instinctive love for nature. He added that the training will facilitate the teachers about ideas and method for carrying out projects as well as suggestions for involving the whole school towards becoming the Paryavaran Mitra School.
The inaugural session ended with a vote of thanks to the chair by the Sr. Programme Officer (ENVIS) Shri Rajen Pradhan.
Later, the resource persons from Centre for Environment Education (CEE) Guwahati and Gangtok office imparted training on Paryavaran Mitra teacher’s handbook. During the course of the programme, active discussion, knowledge and experience sharing amongst participants was witnessed. Green teacher from Rong Secondary School, South Sikkim Shri Arun Kumar Rai gave an insight to the Paryavaran Mitra programme and shared his success stories. Group-wise activity-cum-workshop was organized and each group leader participated actively. All the participants gave a positive feedback to the training programme.
The training session ended with the vote of thanks to all the participants and resource persons by CCF (Environment) Shri B.K.Tewari followed by the distribution of certificates to the participants. The training session end at 4 PM.