Environment will become a compulsory subject in government schools in Delhi from the next academic season. According to the state education minister Sahi Singh Verma, "The elder citizens of the Union Territory have hitherto displayed a callous disregard for air, land and water. Our only hope is action from the younger generation imbued with awareness about what is happening about their habitat."
However, the announcement caught the state education department off-guard. "No groundwork for teaching environment as a subject has been done so far," claimed a senior bureaucrat. He pointed out that the department had yet to define the scope, detail the syllabus and conduct workshops for specialist teachers. "All this needs considerable time and none of it has been planned for," the official pointed out.
Verma dismisses such objections and asserts, "I will ensure that the subject is introduced in all the 500-odd government-run schools by July."
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