Roles of Environmental Education Programmes in Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11 In Rivers State

Abstract

The study examined the roles of environmental education programmes in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 11 in Rivers State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Three research questions and three hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study comprised 3748 programme facilitators and adult learners in the registered adult education centers across the three senatorial districts in Rivers State (Rivers State Agency for Adult and Non-formal Education, 2023). The sample size for this study was three hundred and thirty-four (334) respondents. The multistage sampling technique was adopted in selecting the sample for this study.  The instrument for data collection was a close-ended structured questionnaire titled “Roles of Environmental Education Programmes in the Achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 11, Questionnaire” (REAEPASDG11Q).  The face and content validities of the instrument for this study were determined by the researcher’s supervisor and three other experts. To establish the reliability of the validated instrument as a measuring device, a pilot study of twenty (20) respondents comprising both facilitators and adult learners’ participants, outside the study population was carried out. The internal consistency method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument as 0.837 using Chronbach Alpha statistics.  The data collected was presented in tables to reflect the views of the respondents, and also analyzed with Mean and Standard Deviation. The eight null hypotheses were tested with independent t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The result of the study revealed that sustainable water management, sustainable waste disposal/management, climate change and sustainable farming education promote the achievement of sustainable development goal 11 to a very high extent, environmental literacy education, sustainable sanitation education and afforestation/conservation education promote the achievement of sustainable development goal 11 to a high extent while environmental health programme promotes the achievement of sustainable development goal 11 to a low extent. It was further revealed that significant differences exist in the mean ratings of programme facilitators and adult learners on the extents to which environmental health programme, sustainable water management, sustainable waste disposal/management programme, climate change education, afforestation/conservation education and sustainable farming education promote the achievement of sustainable development goal 11. The researcher made some recommendations among which was that; environmental literacy education programme should be consolidated in Rivers State as it considerably promotes the achievement of sustainable development goal 11.