Taiwan

Through the Taiwan Environmental Education Act, Taiwan promotes a national environmental education certification system for practitioners, institutes, government, and the private sector. The program provides a nationwide process for advancing environmental literacy and achieving the goals of Taiwan’s strategic plan for sustainable development. The Environmental Education Act informs national environmental education guidelines, an EE action plan (through legislation, certification programs, evaluations, and assessments), and the conduct of government organizations. The national policy also requires that all students and any staff in government and business engage in 4 hours of government funded environmental education curriculum each year. Additionally, Taiwan and the United States work together on the U.S.-Taiwan Eco Campus program to share EE experiences through student exchange programs. In 2016, there were 85 pairs of schools participating in the program (a total of 170 schools) between the US & Taiwan.  Taiwan’s efforts to improve environmental literacy through national policy, engaging programs, and EE certification are being met with substantial success, as the country now hosts over 7,000 certified EE personnel, with over 3,000 of them working in the national school system.

Furthermore, Taiwanese environmental groups have been actively pushing for the EE impact to grow. Non-profit organizations  such as Greenpeace, Rethink, Green Citizens’ Action Alliance, Citizen of the Earth Taiwan, and Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition, have been going to school campuses, working with teachers, and hosting summer camps/workshops for students. Notably, Greenpeace East Asia’s climate change education program, Green Future (launched in 2020),  has built an online environmental learning platform, a certification system for students as they complete learning modules (which helps when applying to higher education), and various learning materials for teachers or students in the region.