Education will be more fun if students are required to plant saplings as part of their curriculum

Around eight lakh students in the state studying in schools affiliated to the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations will have to grapple with one more subject from next year: environmental science.

The decision follows a Supreme Court order asking all education boards and universities in the country to include the subject in their curricula. The state has 400-odd schools affiliated to the council, the second largest concentration after Karnataka.

“Our decision is almost final. The subject will be taught as part of the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE-Class X) and Indian School Certificate (ISC-Class XII) courses,” said Gillian D’Costa Hart, a council member and the principal of Welland Gouldsmith School. “We’re trying to incorporate the subject in a way that would least affect the student,” she added.

It is, however, not yet decided whether the subject will be compulsory or optional.

The council has also not made up its mind from which year students of Class X and Class XII will have to take the test on environmental science. Sources said the target year is 2007 or 2008.

“We have to study the Supreme Court order closely. If it says the paper will have to be included in the ICSE exams from 2007, we’ll have to start teaching the subject in Class IX from next year,” said a council official.

“We are happy that the subject will be introduced. We are trying to train some of our teachers so that they can teach it as soon as it is introduced,” said C.R. Gasper, principal of St Augustine Day School and a member of the State Board for Anglo-Indian Education.

The West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and the Council of Higher Secondary Education are yet to decide whether to include a 100-mark paper on the subject.

Schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), too, have not taken any decision. The authorities claim they are yet to receive any order from Delhi.