Challenges and opportunities in mainstreaming environmental education into the curricula of teachers' colleges in Ethiopia

Lack of environmental awareness is one of the underlying causes of severe environmental degradation in Ethiopia. As teachers' colleges are a seedbed of such awareness, assessment of college curricula should shed light on the possibilities they offer to develop capacities to address environmental degradation. This small‐scale study is based on the assessment of the curricula of the Kotebe and St Mary's teachers' colleges, Ethiopia, and the knowledge and opinions of a sample of teaching students on pertinent environmental issues facing the country. Comparative analysis of data generated through questionnaires and interviews was undertaken across college, curricula and gender categories. The results suggest: a ‘paradigm shift’ from a core‐focused to a pedagogical‐focused curriculum in the last three decades; a declining trend in the provision of outdoor environmental education; inadequate levels of factual knowledge amongst current college students; and variations in knowledge levels and attitudes among the respondents taking different curricula. If the work of teachers' colleges is to support wider efforts throughout Ethiopia to address the causes and effects of environmental degradation, the findings of the study underscore the necessity of revisiting the composition of course categories and maintaining the existence of outdoor environmental education in the current college curricula.