Council committed to Enviroschools in the Bay
The withdrawal of Government funding for the Enviroschools Foundation has sent shockwaves through the educational sector.
The Government announced it will completely cut the funding for Enviroschools advisers from the beginning of next year, and has given Enviroschools six months to develop a plan for their ongoing funding requirements.
In Golden Bay, Central Takaka School, Motupipi School, Collingwood Area School and the Golden Bay Kindergarten are already part of the Enviroschools programme, and Golden Kids is in the process of signing up. Nationwide, 675 schools and preschools representing 210,000 children, are registered.
Enviroschools are supported by councils and other funding partners, but without core support from central government, things look tough.
However Claire Webster, the Enviroschools facilitator for Golden Bay, said Tasman District Enviroschools would survive as the Tasman District Council was “fully committed to continue funding for the programme”.
“The council supports the programme locally. We’ve already bought a number of excellent resource kits and we have a lot of the great material we can use. We can continue to grow the programme here, but the National Foundation is responsible for revamping the resource kits, and with reduced funding at a national level, the challenge now is how to produce the innovative ideas that come out of national funding, such as the current eco-hut challenge that encourages kids to build an eco-hut with no more than $100,” said Claire.
“For the eco-hut, the kids are encouraged to do everything themselves from the start, without being adult-led. They gather ideas from architects and do surveys, then they design the hut and collate all the material. They can see if their designs work and if their huts are structurally sound and what kind of material can be used. It’s such fantastic learning. These are the sorts of things that have been cut.”
Claire praised the programme for creating many curriculum links, and making learning active, exciting and empowering for children.
“It’s not about it being another topic; it is rather another flavour that every topic gets dunked in. Children want to learn to read because they want to read the instructions. The programme encourages children to know their place, learn about their place and make choices about what they want and what they want to change. They grow to love their place and it also often involves re-training teachers to work with the children,” said Claire.
“The Enviroschool programme comes from the positive and it the gives the children the feeling that their concerns matter. There is colossal scope in it. How can you turn your back on something like this?”
Motupipi School principal Mark Cullen said, “It’s disappointing that the Government has cut sustainability programmes after encouraging schools to develop them. We also lose our Education for Sustainability advisor, who has been a great support to schools, at the end of the year. Fortunately we’re well supported by the Enviroschools organisation whose programme makes a valuable contribution to our schools and in turn to the community.
“We’re also lucky that the TDC, through Claire Webster, has been an awesome support for us as we develop our Enviroschools programme. Currently the focus at Motupipi is the school vegetable garden with children propagating plants for their class gardens as well as for their gardens at home and encouraging healthy eating,. We are also working on being more efficient with our recycling and setting up an enviro-group of students to help with planning activities around the school. We’ll need to look to other organisations for funding support as we can’t afford to cover the whole programme from our operational grant.”
Ina Holst
