Muscat
The Oman Environmental Services Holding Company, “Be’ah,” announced the launch of the “Sustainability Labs” program in collaboration with the Specialized Institute for Vocational Training for Teachers. The aim is to empower teachers with the environmental knowledge and skills necessary to become environmental awareness leaders in schools.
The program seeks to convey sustainability concepts to students and the community by promoting sound environmental practices, including waste reduction, reuse, and proper disposal, contributing to a broader vision for a more sustainable future.
The program consists of three essential phases. The first phase begins with centralized training, where trainers are qualified at a central level. This is followed by the second phase, which relies on decentralized training, where initial teachers are trained in various governorates. The third phase aims to provide training materials on the “Moodle” platform, allowing all teachers to access them, ensuring the dissemination of environmental knowledge among all teaching staff in the school community.
Hafsa bint Hamoud Al-Harasi, a communication specialist at Be’ah, stated that the “Sustainability Labs” program represents a strategic investment in education and the environment, aiming to empower teachers to be change leaders in their communities and to establish sustainable environmental practices that contribute to building a more sustainability-conscious future.
She added that the program focuses on three levels of change to ensure a tangible and sustainable impact, starting with cognitive change that enhances teachers’ and students’ understanding of the importance of sustainability and Be’ah’s role in this field. This is followed by emotional and behavioral change through transforming daily habits, reducing waste production, and promoting reuse, culminating in practical application change that includes implementing environmental activities within schools to instill sustainable behavior among students and teachers and extend it to the wider community.
Dr. Khalfan bin Saleh Al-Nasri, a trainer in the initial teachers’ program at the Specialized Institute for Vocational Training for Teachers, explained that the program aims to equip educational staff with new skills that enhance their educational role in developing environmental sustainability concepts and promoting its culture among students in interactive and practical ways.
He stated that the program seeks to strengthen partnerships with teaching staff and school workers to support the achievement of the strategic goals of the company, as it provides teachers with theoretical and practical knowledge about environmental awareness and focuses on essential environmental issues, helping them integrate sustainability into the curriculum and daily school life.
He noted that the program is expected to contribute to building an environmentally conscious generation capable of transforming knowledge into practical behaviors that benefit the entire community, enhancing the culture of sustainability within educational institutions, and driving the educational process towards adopting responsible and healthy environmental practices, thereby contributing to achieving national sustainable development goals.
