Assessment of effectiveness of teaching environmental education content in secondary schools in Tanzania : the case study of four selected secondary schools in Ilala district

This study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of teaching environmental education in secondary schools in Tanzania. The case study was Dar es Salaam City where four schools were selected in Ilala District. The study delineates some constraints in the effectiveness of teaching environmental education (EE) in secondary schools which leads to lack of specific guidelines for specific methodologies or approaches to be employed during teaching EE, shortage of fund particularly for conducting outdoor environmental activities, large class size, combined school surroundings, deficiency in text and reference books, lack of other supportive teaching I learning resources, poorly motivated students especially in conservation activities, underpaid teachers and lack of incentives for extracurricular activities for EE. Generally the above reasons were found to affect the understanding environmental education themes among students. The following recommendations to the government, teachers, curriculum developers and student have been pointed out; The government should; provide training for both pre- service and in¬ service for teachers in EE, provide schools with financial support in order to enable both teachers and students to participate fully during teaching- learning process by employing different methods such as field trips, workshops, seminars, and other environmental education programmes and allocate large sites especially in the cities for building schools so as to provide areas for EE activities such as planting trees. Teachers should; advance their knowledge on various environmental issues from different sources including mass media rather than waiting to be provide with reference and text books, establish active environmental education clubs, be cooperative and hence develop team teaching so as to share their experiences and thus increase their competence, and combine EE with local indigenous knowledge in order to promote understanding of EE. Curriculum developers should; prepare EE curricular content to be taught as an independent subject in order to bring bolisticness and interlink ages into perspective and lastly students should recognize the importance of the environment and hence participate fully to learn about environmental issues so that they can be able to conserve and manage the environment since they are the ones to inherit it.