Education is not just about passing exams. It is also about cultivating character and the desire to serve others with loving kindness and enthusiasm. Covid has shown us that our ailing society and suffering planet need help to make necessary changes and to move forward towards the creation of a greener, healthier and less selfish world. And Climate Change is an even bigger challenge than Covid. Our young people have a tremendous opportunity to make their future world a better place.
One way in which they could do this, within their school environment, would be to develop and implement an idea for the betterment of their local community in some way. This could be done by means of a national secondary schools competition in which each school would present a proposal, together with all the plans for implementing it, that would in some way be of benefit to the people of their local community. The experience would also enhance their own learning.
Suggested proposals might include:
* Planting a small area of woodland.
* The greening of a small area of their local town, making it a pedestrian precinct.
* Creating an organic fruit and vegetable plot and donating some of the produce to a local care home.
* Helping to organize carbon-free, locally sourced food for their school lunches.
The competition would be open to all UK wide secondary schools and the proposals of the winning few schools (say 5 schools) would be chosen by a judging panel of suitably eminent people with imagination and a true knowledge of education. Funding for the schemes proposed by the successful schools would come both from local/national government and also from the school itself, say 50-50. In that way, the school would also have to creatively raise the necessary funds.
1809-2