Supreme court order


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EVENTS

The Supreme Court and Environment Education

In 1991, Shri M C Mehta filed an application in the public interest, asking the Supreme Court to:

Issue direction to cinema halls that they show slides with information on the environment;
Issue direction for the spread of information relating to the environment on All India Radio; and
Issue direction that the study of the environment becomes a compulsory subject in schools and colleges.

On 18th December 2003, the Hon’ble Supreme Court further ordered, “We also direct the NCERT….to prepare a module (model) syllabus”, and on 13^th July 2004 it directed that “the syllabus prepared by the NCERT for Class I to XII shall be adopted by every state in their respective schools”. It further directed that “NCERT be appointed as a nodal agency to supervise the implementation of this Court’s order”. Compliance to Supreme Court order is mandatory and desirable, and applies to all states andUnionTerritories (in fact, it is one of the few things that apply to all education in India)

NCERT clarified that in order to have compliance, a separate subject is not necessity. It can be done through infusion, in science, social studies, mathematics, language and other subjects, and/or through a separate subject. It does however have to be part of the compulsory curriculum.

NCERT developed a syllabus for Environment Education for 1 to 12 standards, which is accepted by the SC.

Click here for NCERT syllabus for EE in schools (links to NCERT site)

On 18th December 2003, the Hon’ble Supreme Court directed that “We accept on principle that through the medium of education awareness of the environment and its problems related to pollution should be taught as a compulsory subject. The University Grants Commission will take appropriate steps immediately to give effect to what we have said, i.e. requiring the Universities to prescribe a course on environment. So far as education upto the college level is concerned, we would require every State Government and every Education Board connected with education upto the matriculation stage or even intermediate college to immediately take steps to enforce compulsory education on environment in a graded way."

Click here for UGC syllabus for EE in colleges

Click here to know more about EE in schools in accordance with Supreme Court ruling (pdf 400 kb approx)