The University of Witwatersrand education campus has become the first higher education facility in South Africa to achieve green flag status for its efforts at going green.
Green flag status is awarded for meeting the standards set by the Eco-Schools programme run by the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa and the World Wildlife Fund South Africa.
Eco-Schools assists teachers and learners to link expected learning outcomes in their curriculums to environmental education activities, but because the programme is usually aimed at schools, the education campus had to adjust its approach in order to qualify.
“After expressing interesting the project in 2007, we contacted Eco-Schools and they advised us on what needed to be done to qualify for the project,” explains Barbara Thorne, the Wits lecturer who drove the greening initiative at the school of education campus in Parktown, Johannesburg.
“We did what schools are expected to do, but obviously some areas had to be adjusted to suit the way our campus is run. We registered for the programme and followed the guidelines set out by eco schools by including environmental issues in our curriculum, our teaching and learning and in our use of resources.”
Thorne and her colleagues introduced several green initiatives to the campus over the last two years, including major recycling drives, replacing incandescent globes with fluorescents, raising awareness of special environmental days and an environmental staff seminar.
“Furthermore, as a university, we are required to engage in research relevant to education in its broadest sense. For this reason, research conducted by both students and lecturers was encouraged,” explains Thorne.
“We are extremely proud of our achievement and we hope that other universities will follow suit and make a contribution to environmental awareness in South Africa.”