At the end of August 2024, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) through the Education Standards, Curriculum, and Assessment Agency (BSKAP), released a climate change education guide . This is the first concrete result of a long planning process for the integration of climate change education into formal education in Indonesia that began in mid-2023 .

This guide is aimed at local policy makers, school principals, and educators, with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of climate change issues, including their definition and impacts on people’s lives. In addition, this guide emphasizes the importance of climate change education as a tool to empower critical and proactive young people through climate mitigation and adaptation actions.

While positive, this guide requires development regarding content, implementation mechanisms, and outreach strategies in order to be implemented optimally and effectively.

Integration of affective dimensions

According to UNESCO, climate change education is required to cover three dimensions of learning , namely cognitive (knowledge), affective (socio-emotional/feelings), and conative (behavior). Unfortunately, in terms of content, this guide has not emphasized the affective or feeling dimension.

This guide only acknowledges the importance of the affective dimension, but does not include concrete strategies to improve it among students. This has the potential to cause the affective dimension to be neglected in the learning process, considering that this topic is not yet commonly applied in Indonesian schools.

My research in Japan found that the affective dimension is the most important predictor of sustainable behavioral intention. Individuals who are emotionally involved with climate change are more likely to take climate action. This means that the affective dimension is a key to bridging the knowledge – action gap . This gap proves that knowledge alone is not enough to generate real action.

An interactive and immersive emotional approach, such as that implemented in France , could be an example. There, climate change education not only conveys information, but also engages students emotionally through open discussions about concerns and fears about the impacts of climate change among students and between students and teachers.

In this process, teachers position themselves as equals with students, without being judgmental of the feelings expressed. This emotional reflection is crucial in transformative learning —one of the pedagogical principles of climate change education, which targets changing the way students think.

This recognition of students’ feelings has not been seen in the climate change education guidelines in Indonesia. The competency map in these guidelines, for example, still uses words such as ‘understand’, ‘recognize’, and ‘identify’, reflecting a conventional pedagogical approach based on knowledge transmission and a focus on the cognitive dimension.

As a result, the teaching methods applied are passive, resembling the ‘ spoon-feeding ‘ method . To overcome this, words such as ‘express’, ‘explore’, ‘apply’, ‘analyze’, and ‘develop’ can be added to the guide, as recommended by climate change education guidelines in Arizona, United States (US) , Victoria, Australia , and France .

Incorporating political elements

The guide also does not integrate political elements. In fact, systemic changes to climate change resolution are heavily influenced by political action . The lack of encouragement for students to understand and participate in the political processes that influence climate policy is another significant weakness.

Here, community political action becomes very crucial to encourage and support the government’s political will in climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies through its policies.

Sweden , for example, has made political education an integral part of climate change education. Students learn to understand the legislative process and how to influence policy through democratic participation, such as through debate and lobbying .

As a result, the younger generation, such as Greta Thunberg , has had political awareness and dared to voice their aspirations since the age of 15.

Position in the curriculum

In terms of implementation, the guideline emphasizes the importance of a cross-disciplinary approach to climate change education. However, there is no detail yet on who will be responsible and how coordination will be carried out between subjects. This can cause confusion in the field, especially in determining the responsibilities of teachers of subjects that are not directly related to the topic of climate change.

Indeed, climate change education is claimed to have epistemological ambiguity —as a discipline in itself, or a field of knowledge within a discipline. Without a clear understanding, it is difficult to develop integration strategies into the curriculum and create effective competency maps and learning outcomes.

The evidence is that climate change education is often spread across the curriculum ( cross-curriculum ). However, it is still unclear which subjects are responsible for integrating climate change education in schools. So is who the teachers are who play a role in coordinating.

Research in the Czech Republic found that a cross-curricular approach to climate change education in the country does provide students with knowledge from multiple subjects, but it makes it difficult for students to connect that information into a coherent understanding.

To address this challenge, Japan has implemented a special subject, sogotekina gakushuu no jikan or integrated learning time. This allows students to combine knowledge from various disciplines in the context of climate change.

This class hour discusses social and environmental issues, including climate change. So, students can see the bigger picture and understand the interrelationships between issues. This approach has similarities with the Pancasila Student Profile Strengthening Project (P5) in the Independent Curriculum, although P5 is more co-curricular (deepening of subjects that have been studied in class) rather than intracurricular (teaching and learning activities carried out according to schedule).

Striving for holistic reach

Another challenge is ensuring that the guide gets serious attention from educators. Teachers who are less interested or understand the importance of climate change education may not access, let alone actively implement, the guide. In addition, limited resources, teacher capacity, lack of specialized training, and lack of interactive learning tools are also major obstacles.

One country that has successfully integrated climate change education into formal education is Italy . The country requires climate change education at all levels of school for a minimum of 33 hours a year, including it in civics education.

The central government has implemented strict and structured policies, including mandatory training for teachers and regular evaluation of the implementation of climate change education in schools. As a result, teacher literacy on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) , including climate change, is very high. Research in two regions in Italy also found that young people there have a higher awareness of climate change compared to adults.

In other words, the success of this guide requires collaborative efforts involving various stakeholders, including central and local governments, teachers, and parents. In particular, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology needs to conduct proactive outreach to stakeholders in the regions and heads of educational units regarding the importance of climate change education in schools.

Author Bio: Kelvin Tang is a PhD Candidate at the University of Tokyo