ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN UKRAINE

Abstract

Ecological issues, having reached a world-wide basis, form a new social reality. Nowadays, ecological knowledge, skills, and beliefs are of prime importance for the development of a new environmental friendliness and formation of a value perception of the world. The implementation of Ukraine's integration pursuits demands a compliance with the generally accepted environmental norms of behaviour by all the citizens of the country, which consequently requires a substantial revision of a structure and content of the educational process in the direction of strengthening the ability of young people for continuous environmental education on the principles of formation of civic consciousness and activity. Environmental education, aimed at the formation of skills of tolerant and careful attitude to the environmental objects, contributes to the formation of environmental competence of a prospective specialist, who would be able to deal with the problems of national economy and to solve the problems of rational nature management in a professional manner. Implementation of education in the interests of sustainable development is one of the priority tasks, and this is impossible without active participation of educational establishments, awareness of a need for sustainable use of natural resources and careful attitude to nature. An important link is an organization of educational process by informing children and youth about environmental issues. Children and youth are exactly those driving force that can influence a state of the environment in future. A successful solution to the complex environmental issues requires a transition to a new ideology of life, ecologization of economy and production, and formation of an ecologically oriented civilization. A key role in this will be played by the formation of a high level of environmental culture and development of environmental education in the interests of sustainable development. Nowadays, the ecological imperative and ecological paradigm should become the guiding principles in the practice of training specialists of any activity profile. Mentality of specialists of a wide variety of professions should become ecological. Formation of a new way of relations between people, technology and nature is a primary task of modern civilization. This means that environmental education, in particular its components, should be taken to the next, high-quality level. All these issues actualize the aspect of environmental education for modern Ukrainian society. The task of environmental education consists in the formation of life-values-based orientations of modern society and modern consciousness - their ecologization. Orientation of modern Ukrainian society towards sustainable development requires ecologization of education as well. Therefore, environmental education shall form a person's responsibility to preserve nature and to implement its vital value in practice.