LANGKAWI: The Education Ministry encourages all schools on Langkawi Island to take their students on a field trip to Kilim Karst Geoforest Park to show them the importance of preserving environmental sustainability, says Fadhlina Sidek.
The Education Minister said her ministry provides space for students to learn outside the classroom, including a visit to the Geoforest Park, which has complete facilities and is very appropriate for them to gain exposure to sustainable education.
"Alhamdulillah, today I also agreed to give another path to the students, via 'One Student, One Tree', (an initiative to plant mangrove trees). We encourage more students to come and become ambassadors of this Geopark (Geoforest Park) through the 'One Student, One Tree' project.
"I think Langkawi is the best place for our children to become Geopark ambassadors, especially talking about environmental sustainability,” she told reporters here Monday (Aug 21).
Earlier, Fadhlina who is also the president of the Malaysian National Commission for Unesco (MNCU) launched the "Mangrove-ing Our Land" at the Geoforest Park here, themed "Protecting Nature, Better Future", in conjunction with the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem 2023.
The programme, held for the first time, is a collaboration between MNCU and Langkawi Development Authority (LADA) as the management of Langkawi Unesco Global Geopark (LUGGp), which aims to increase public awareness about the role of mangroves as one of the important aspects of environmental ecosystem sustainability.
The programme, among others, includes planting mangrove seedlings involving school teachers and students as well as the production of batik, based on mangrove trees. The participants also had the opportunity to plant mangrove trees around the Mangrove Sanctuary area in the Geoforest Park.
Fadhlina said Unesco's commitment together with the state Education Department (JPN), the Geoforest Park and LADA, played an important role in promoting such a programme which was seen as very good for raising students' awareness of the importance of protecting the environmental ecosystem.
"Today we are talking about environmental sustainability, and the collaboration between Unesco and LADA, which focuses on mangrove trees," she said.
In another development, Fadhlina stressed that the effort to address the issue of teachers’ workload in this country is an ongoing commitment which has always been one of her ministry's priorities.
She said appropriate measures to ease teachers’ workload will be looked at from time to time, focusing on short-term and long-term issues.
"Our initial commitment with seven initial steps (addressing the issue of teacher workload) with specific steps for which we have the guidelines. However, I want to stress that the issue of teachers’ workload is our continuous commitment.
"Meaning that now that we have announced seven steps, then there will be medium and long-term measures; it is a continuous commitment from time to time...we will see because (it involves) short-term as well as long-term issues,” she said.
In February, MOE announced seven immediate measures to lessen the work load of teachers, which, among others, discontinuing any form of competition, celebration or ceremony in schools which do not have a major impact on student learning. - Bernama
