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| Taiwan passes Environmental Education Act |
 Taiwan passes Environmental Education Act
The ROC Legislature passed the Environmental Education Act on May 18, seventeen years after it was first drafted. The new law mandates that citizens, including the nation’s president and vice president, employees of government organizations at all levels and state-run enterprises, as well as staff and students of all schools below the senior high school level, must receive four hours of environmental education each year.
According to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the most important objective of the law is to promote the concepts of environmental protection and sustainable development through national education programs that will lead people to enjoy a symbiotic coexistence with nature and live in harmony with the environment.
The EPA also pointed out that a special feature of the act is that it provides three types of environmental education certification—for personnel, institutions and facilities. People who have received training at or passed exams held by government-authorized environmental education institutions would become certified educators, who could then provide their services to various agencies and businesses, and thereby help in the development of professional environmental education.
EPA Minister Stephen Shen said that Taiwan is one of a few countries to have passed a law on environmental education. In the future, the curriculum will take into consideration environmental issues of greatest international concern at the time. Programs will include lectures, forums, online learning, firsthand experience, experiments, outdoor studies, field trips, film viewings and other diversified forms of hands-on implementation.
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