Mozambican students’ knowledge and perceptions about climate change: an exploratory study in Pemba City

Abstract

Climate change is the most serious environmental, social, and economic problem humanity is currently facing. Education is a fundamental pillar for societies in their efforts to address climate change, as stated in Article 12 of the Paris Agreement. In view of this imperative, the need to develop a Climate Change Education (CCE) plan that would be up to the challenge arose in the field of educational research. The guidelines for such a task are based on the study of four educational factors: the students, the teachers, the teaching and learning strategies and methods, and the goals of education. Research on these factors is abundant; nevertheless, there is a lack of these studies concerning Africa. Here, we present an exploratory study which focuses on students in Pemba (Mozambique) and aims to be the first step in the exploration and development of a basis for CCE in this country. We employed a questionnaire consisting of 38 closed-end items which was administered to 256 Mozambican students (aged 16–18). Findings suggest that students declared a limited knowledge about climate change, erroneous beliefs about the anthropogenic causes of climate change, and low levels of responsibility and risk perception. Further progress in the development of CCE in Mozambique would require future research to explore other educational factors with the aim of building a more accurate image of the educational reality of climate change in this country.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change education
• Mozambique
• students
• beliefs
• knowledge
• environmental education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In Mozambique, school principals and their class coordinators have the responsibility to oversee all the interests of underage students, as well as social and pedagogical aspects, as students of the school, and are within the school grounds. In turn, the guardians transmit the information and events to the students' parents, in a meeting called school councils, which usually takes place once a month.