Assessment of long-term retention of environmental education lessons given to teachers in rural areas of Madagascar

Abstract

Increase in knowledge is the very first step in environmental education programs. In particular, a long-term retention of knowledge could bring changes in attitudes and behaviours. Education level in Madagascar is low, especially in rural villages, and most of children do not continue after primary school. The lack of education is one of the main causes of the dramatic habitat loss of this biodiversity hotspot since locals use traditional cultivation ways that have high impact on the forest and give very low profits. In this study we aimed at testing whether four days of training to teachers from Iaboakoho provided an increase in knowledge about environmental issues, with particular focus on lemurs. Iaboakoho is one of the four municipalities facing the South part of the Tsitongambarika protected area, together with Mahatalaky, Mandromodromotra, and Ampasy-Nahampoana. To test whether knowledge was retained, we gave structured questionnaires to 10 teachers from Iaboakoho after one year from the training. We also tested the knowledge of 33 teachers from the other three municipalities as control groups. Each questionnaire encompassed 19 questions and was divided in four sections: General Knowledge, Conservation, Ecology and Behaviour, and Identification. We used Generalised Linear Models with total scores and scores for each section as dependent variables using the log-linear Poisson distribution as link function. Municipalities were the fixed factor, and a post-hoc test was performed to investigate pairwise comparisons. The teachers from Iaboakoho resulted to have higher total scores when compared to the teachers from the other three municipalities. In particular, the teachers from Iaboakoho had better scores for General Knowledge and Identification. Knowledge gained from the environmental education training was not transient, thus teachers can transfer information on environmental subjects to children in the area. This study is the very first step to increase environmental knowledge in the area, and further conservation education programs focused on increasing proenvironmental attitudes and behaviours are required in order to have effective impacts to lower down environmental exploitation.

Educational Approaches to Encourage Pro-Environmental Behaviors in Madagascar

“…In Madagascar, this has been addressed through celebrating environmental festivals and ceremonies [75,81,107], theater [78], producing pro-environmental radio programs [71,72,77], and conducting participatory environmental monitoring [71,84]. Other approaches focused on supplementing formal education with EE lessons or materials such as comic books [47,48,59,60,108,109], teacher training [48,60,61,68], environmental clubs, Saturday schools, participation in restoration projects [48,68,69], social marketing campaigns [80], ecotourism, and sustainable resource management (Figure 1; [31,110]). Table 1 summarizes the main obstacles for to encouraging pro-environmental behaviors in Madagascar and the use of targeted interventions (mainly EE) as scientifically sound solutions within the context of many low-income countries like Madagascar.…”

“…The effective use of EE materials in teaching strongly depends on teachers' skills to properly transmit the conservation message behind the material [48,54,[60][61][62]. In general, only 17% of the teachers in primary schools are trained to teach [5], and Ormsby [63] identified insufficient teacher training in EE as a major hindrance for teachers to use the EE materials provided in schools on the Masoala peninsula.…”

“…In general, only 17% of the teachers in primary schools are trained to teach [5], and Ormsby [63] identified insufficient teacher training in EE as a major hindrance for teachers to use the EE materials provided in schools on the Masoala peninsula. Balestri et al [61] conducted four consecutive two-hour EE interventions with rural teachers from south-east Madagascar (around Tolanaro, Figure 1). These lessons included presentations of local topics on forests, lemurs, and the importance of an intact ecosystem combined with discussions and evaluations of the knowledge gained.…”

“…As a result of this straightforward approach, targeted teachers retained environmental knowledge over at least one year, supposedly leading to increased transmission of pro-environmental knowledge to school children. However, this study lacked a control group [61]. Although 14.1% (35/248) of all EE lessons were given to teachers to improve their pedagogical skills for subsequent EE lessons, several target areas for EE in Madagascar still lack teacher training as a supporting measure for proper communication of environmental topics (Figure 1).…”

Testing efficacy of a multi-site environmental education programme in a demographically and biologically diverse setting

“…Such results may be linked to place-based education, where conservation education is done directly in the habitats that conservationists aim to protect or where students gain a direct first-hand experience with the target species (Jacobson & Padua 1995, Sobel 2003. Teachers from forest areas in Madagascar had higher retention of knowledge regarding threatened lemur species than those from urban settings (Balestri et al 2017). Research into the factors that influence teacher attitudes and practices has been inconclusive, but teachers' past experience within the curriculum area may influence teaching attitudes, and thereby the learning of their students (Linder & Simpson 2018).…”