Nearly half of the world’s children live in “extremely high risk” countries for climate change. The climate crisis is a threat to children, especially girls, in vulnerable communities of Southern Africa as the very elements they need such as water, food, shelter, safety and learning are impacted by climate shocks.

Zimbabwe is ranked as one of the top ten countries most affected by climate change on the Global Climate Risk Index, with 6.6 million children (43% of its population) exposed to at least one climate-related hazard and at risk of climate change impacts such as flooding, cyclones and heatwaves.

Climate change has affected children’s ability to access education - an estimated 1.4 million children have been impacted, with 10 of the worst drought-affected districts of Zimbabwe reporting declining school attendance levels.

The government of Zimbabwe understands the importance of investing in the next generation of leaders to drive national development initiatives, including those aimed at promoting climate adaptation and action, as part of its ‘leave no one and no place behind’ mantra.

In this blog, we highlight an innovative pedagogical approach to climate education and action in 103 secondary schools in rural Zimbabwe in the Mutare and Buhera Districts.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE ) promoted the integration of climate education into the Guidance and Counselling (G&C) priority learning area, and learners are gaining the skills and tools they need to champion environmental stewardship and climate adaptation, and this is contributing to creating safe learning spaces.

A curriculum fostering skills to co-create a sustainable world

Zimbabwe’s education curriculum framework recently transitioned from being competency-based to heritage-based by now emphasizing the interconnectedness of human beings and their ecosystem based on the African ethos of Unhu/Ubuntu.

One main result of this transition has been the development of the Guidance and Counselling (G&C) learning area to equip learners with the breadth of skills required to “co-construct” a more sustainable world in line with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4, 5, and 13, including developing the skills of problem solving, creativity and leadership.

Climate education concepts, including disaster risk reduction, were embedded into the G&C curriculum to promote climate risk awareness and preparedness through the START4Girls initiative—a 5-year Global Affairs Canada-funded initiative implemented by CARE Zimbabwe under the strategic guidance of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to promote adolescent girls’ education.

The need to integrate climate education within START4Girls was made clear by an in-depth gender analysis of the initiative that identified the main barriers to adolescent girls’ education: drought, the flooding of rivers, heatwaves and increased household vulnerability to reduced income.

Climate-integrated G&C lessons were delivered to learners, both girls and boys ages 12 to 19, twice a week as a core, time-tabled learning area. A supplementary G&C Manual was also developed for teachers, with 206 secondary school teachers undergoing orientation and training on how to use the manual.

Through adolescent-led school committees, learners generated evidence by undertaking participatory action research - an approach which places those most affected by a challenge at the center of generating and analyzing data for the purpose of developing solutions.

The participatory action research process was designed to map and rank the context-specific climate and other risks and hazards within and beyond their school environment.

As a result, learners were able to collectively plan and implement climate risk-informed income-generating activities such as poultry production, benefitting from project-based climate education and learning as well as engaging in advocacy on the impact of climate change on learning through radio dialogues.

Mainstreaming climate education for resilience

As GPE advances, “climate-resilient education systems are essential for protecting the fundamental right to education” and should thus be viewed as a non-negotiable part of national climate response, adaptation and mitigation strategies.

The World Bank also notes education is “the single strongest predictor for climate awareness” as mainstreaming climate education nurtures better preparedness and resilience among learners.

The START4Girls project has reached 10,988 participants (52% girls) through learner-led climate resilience-building, safe schools’ promotion, disaster risk reduction and school income generating initiatives. Participants highlighted that innovative approaches to climate education, such as via G&C lessons, which are not necessarily examinable but rather provide the impetus for practical application of skills, are more enjoyable and impactful.

However, another key learning from START4Girls is that while learners can identify various climate risks and challenges, some of the responses to address them are beyond learners’ capacity. For instance, many of the schools participating in START4Girls identified drought as a high-ranking disaster resulting in perennial water shortages.

This underscores the importance of cross-sectoral collaboration and investment in sustainable, climate-informed education services and infrastructure in rural schools to develop solutions to climate challenges that learners can increasingly become aware of through climate education programs.

We thank the people below for their for their invaluable contribution to this article: