Scaling Up Climate Change Education in South Africa

In 2024, news of South Africa’s water shortages made daily headlines as residents of cities such as Johannesburg reported going up to three weeks without water. While the country’s water scarcity is a long-standing issue, rising temperatures are exacerbating the water demand. In February 2024, Southern Africa saw temperatures of 4 to 5 degrees Celsius above average. South Africa is, in fact, warming double as fast as the global average and it is the fifth most water scarce country in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the highest carbon-emitting African country.  

Highly dependent on rain-fed agriculture and other natural resources, the country also remains vulnerable to climate change disrupting economic growth, energy generation and job creation. While developing alternative agricultural and energy policies and practices are a key solution in addressing some of these challenges, so too is climate education in society.  

In South Africa there is a high level of political will and initiatives at all levels of society, however skills and agency are needed to build adaptive capacity and identify solutions to climate change. Relevant education, training and skills development is critical. One of the ways that the South African government has responded is through The Fundisa for Change programme, a multi-stakeholder collaborative national professional learning community, established as a South African community of practice response towards enhancing and supporting transformative environmental and sustainability learning through teacher education in the country.

VVOB, in partnership with GreenMatter and Fundisa for Change, is supporting the Department of Basic Education in capacitating educators with the integration of climate change education in teaching practices through the Keep it Cool project. In phase 1, which ran from 2019 to 2022, we created an environment in which education could be utilised as a step in the path towards a more climate-resilient society, recognising education's contribution to climate action (mitigation and adaption); handling the risks and effects of climate change (resilience and climate justice); and transforming humankind’s relationship with nature to reverse environmental degradation. 

Speaking at the Keep It Cool Climate Change Education Symposium in August 2022, as phase 1 of the project concluded, Nikolas Bosscher, deputy diplomatic representative of Flanders, emphasised the importance of “investing in climate change education, to create awareness amongst the youth about what are the challenges thereof, and how they can adapt to it in the future and what are the measures they can take to mitigate against the continuing climate change.” 

Gardens for Change

According to school principal Siphiwo Tsotso, the school gardens offered a hands-on learning opportunity. “It is something that is fun for them. It is also educational because they understand more now, what the global warming is,” he says. “These school gardens were effective opportunities to teach learners about the climate change, what are the effects thereof, and what are some effective ways to deal with this, as for example, drip irrigation systems were often created to deal with the drought some of the schools were experiencing.”  

Another important quality of these gardens is their potential for community contribution. Describing how the community rolled up their sleeves to get involved in the project, Tsotso says that they felt they were part of something bigger than themselves: “We feel that we are part of change. The entire change in our community.” The gardens also contributed to school feeding programmes, offering nutritional meals to learners. They enabled schools to feed their learners in a sustainable and ecological way, saving some budget, which could be spent on other domains.  

Keep it Cool 2.0

Now, as we extend our focus on climate change education through the second phase of the project, our objective is to strengthen the utilisation of the education sector as a strategic resource in South Africa’s transition towards a climate resilient society. The project builds on the previously successful approach of Keep It Cool 1.0 and will adapt existing materials into user-friendly online trainings, which can be scaled through the existing in-service training department of the Department of Basic Education. District officials will play a crucial role in supporting teachers' professional development and in setting up youth dialogues.  

The project will support teachers and students to deal with climate change through guidance on how to adapt, overcome and solve issues related to the changing environment. Of course, teachers and learners cannot bear the brunt of climate responsibility alone, nor should they, being educated is critical. Good solutions, which are adapted to the contextual issues and problems, are what is key. 

Relevant education, training and skills development as well as discussion and conversation remain essential when talking about climate change and addressing its consequences, as said by Shanu Misser, national coordinator of Fundisa for Change: “This conversation has to happen. It’s critical for humanity.” 

Want to learn more about the importance of climate change education? 

Read our technical brief on climate education