Strengthening of EIA Curricula in Tertiary Level Institutions

The meeting was organized under the ongoing National Impact Assessment Programme (NIAP) being jointly implemented by the Government of Pakistan and IUCN. The meeting was attended by senior government officials, civil society representatives, academia, media and eminent personalities. The consultation meeting was organized to review the findings of report on the ‘Assessment of EIA Curricula and Institutional capacity of Tertiary level Institutions offering EIA courses’. Mr. Javed Malik, Secretary Ministry of National Disaster Management, chaired the opening session of the meeting while Mr. Ghulam Mohayuddin Marri, Member (infrastructure), Planning Commission was the chief guest of the closing session.

The consultation meeting was organized under the National Impact Assessment Programme (NIAP) being jointly implemented by the Government of Pakistan and IUCN. The programme aims to contribute to sustainable development in Pakistan by strengthening Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and introducing Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in Pakistan’s development planning process. NIAP has four partners namely: the Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (PEPA); Environment Wing, Ministry of National Disaster Management (MoNDM); Environment Section, Planning Commission and IUCN Pakistan. Technical assistance to the programme is being provided by the Netherlands Commission for Environmental Assessment (NCEA). The project is being funded by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN).

Mr. Javed Malik, Secretary Ministry of National Disaster Management in his address said that compliance with the environmental laws is not only our legal but also a moral duty. This is possible only when this obligation comes from inside, as a self obligation. He said that for this purpose we need to intervene at the academic level. He highlighted that there is a lot of potential for students of EIA and we need to involve them actively in EIA implementation process. He said that with 18th Amendment in place, provinces are now at more liberty to adequately address environmental issues at the provincial level.  He highlighted that EIA should not be considered a stumbling stone, infact it should be considered a tool for the improvement of a project. He said that this meeting has brought together relevant professionals from academia, government and civil society and expressed hope that this will help in disseminating environmental message more effectively. This will also assist in refining the environmental curricula of our tertiary level institutions. He appreciated the role of the Planning Commission, the Environment Wing, MoNDM and IUCN.

Dr. Aurangzeb Khan, National Project Director NIAP welcomed the participants on behalf of the project to the fourth and final consultative meeting on ‘Review of EIA Curricula’. He highlighted that in order to enhance the agenda of environment in the country, it is very important to promote government and civil society collaboration to deliver towards sustainable development in the country. He also stressed on the need for intervening at the strategic level in order to ensure sustainable development in the country and here he appreciated the role of NIAP.

Mr. Mehmood Akhtar Cheema, Manager Islamabad Programme IUCN Pakistan, thanked the Secretary MoNDM, Javed Malik for his time and interest in the programme. He emphasized that we as a programme can facilitate the process of improving the curricula but we cannot provide a recipe for fixing the situation overnight, institutions themselves have to a come up with a practical solution. He appreciated the role of the National Impact Assessment Programme for addressing this issue.

Prof. Dr. Irfan Khan, Professor of Environmental Sciences Department, International Islamic University, recapped the methodology through which EIA review process was carried out and later gave a presentation on the findings of the review.  He said that besides circulating questionnaires three consultation meeting in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi were held to Review the EIA curricula, where faculty members of Environmental Sciences department of 24 public and private sector universities participated. Discussing the results of the review he said that the most favoured teaching approaches used to impart knowledge are lectures, class exercises and project based group discussions. The most popular tools of assessment used are written examination, assignments, quizzes. Though all the institutions abide by the course outline provided by HEC a few refer to international reading material on EIA. The report also concluded that purely theoretical approach is not the best option rather a combination of theory and practical would be a better solution. The review also reported that EIA course outline for both BS and MS level is the same.

The presentation was followed by an interactive and informative discussion and Question and Answer session. The participants expressed their views and gave suggestions for bringing improvement in the educational system in general and for adapting a much more positive and practical approach for making environmental departments more productive. The participants stressed on the need for training of teachers, they highlighted that there are hardly any opportunities for teachers and students to interact with the EIA practitioners at the professional and practical level. The participants also highlighted the need for actively engaging media with industry.Moreover they stressed on the need for improving the approach through which student are being taught, a more interactive and participatory approach needs to be adopted to make EIA curricula more effective. They also stressed on the need for addressing EIA in local context instead of always relying on syllabus of international institutions.

While making the closing remarks and winding up the session, Mr. Ghulam Mohyuddin Marri, Member (infrastructure), Planning Commission, observed that while working for the Planning Commission he has not observed EIA being conducted for many projects. He further pointed that internationally no funding is release for a project without EIA. He stressed that we need t focus on out education sector, he quoted the example of Bangladesh where literacy rate is over 90 per cent. He said that we need to focus on making right policies for promoting sustainable development in the country. He appreciated the discussion saying that we need to make use of such a platform more often to bring out some fruitful suggestions. He suggested making a committee to compile suggestions from students and teachers to finalize the report.

At the end Dr. Aurangzeb Khan thanked the participants and particularly appreciated the role of IUCN in taking this initiative forward and bringing together all relevant stakeholders together at one platform.

For more Information please contact:

Arfa Zaheer Azmat
Deputy Project Manager/ Advocacy Coordinator -NIAP
Islamabad Programme Office

IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature
and Natural Resources- Pakistan
H. No 21, Street 88, Sector G- 6/ 3
Islamabad, PAKISTAN

Tel: +92 51 2271027- 34
Fax: +92 51 2271017
Email: arfa.zaheer@iucn.org