ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Climate Change launched the Clean Green School Programme at the Islamabad Model College for Girls F-6/2 on Thursday.

The programme will cover the 423 schools under the ambit of the Federal Directorate of Education. At the launch, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam said the programme would be taken to 30,000 more schools across the country.

Mr Aslam said Pakistan is facing two major challenges – those of pollution and climate change – that have incurred a 9pc loss to the GDP annually, which had increased from 6pc a few years ago.

“More than 900 school teachers and 6,000 students have been trained for clean, green and hygienic practices in educational institutions and surroundings,” he added.

He said more than 400 FDE schools have set up clean and green clubs where almost 10,000 students become ‘clean green champions’ by planting trees, maintaining cleanliness, managing solid waste and washing hands.

Mr Aslam said he was counting on the 65pc youth population to bring change and make Pakistan clean and green.

The event was organised by WaterAid Pakistan with the cooperation of the FDE and the Ministry of Climate change as part of the Clean Green Pakistan Movement (CGPM).

It focuses on action-based learning at schools on climate literacy and environmental education in creative and meaningful ways.

The programme encompasses comprehensive activity-based and child-friendly curricula on climate and environmental education. The objective of the programme is to prepare a future generation of environmentally conscious people that are aware of and accountable for the impact they have in creating an environmentally, economically, and equitably sustainable future.

“With the fast-changing world along with human and climate change challenges faced globally and in Pakistan specifically, the CGPM is to become a real national movement with the involvement of all relevant stakeholders including educational institutions.

“The school programme offers an opportunity to create a model to be replicated by the government and private education institutions benefiting 50 million school students in the country,” WaterAid Pakistan Country Director Siddiq Ahmed Khan said.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2019