By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Shahiddan Saidi

BANGI, 7 Mar 2016 –The National University of Malaysia (UKM) has been chosen by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to train teachers and lecturers from Fiji, Niue, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu in Climate Change Education.

The Training of Trainers (ToT) programme – which will be funded by UNESCO – is part of the Ministry of Education’s strategy to promote South-South Cooperation.

The trainers are from UKM’s Institute of Climate Change (IPI), led by its Deputy Director Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Nizam Mohd Said.

“The training will be given based on training materials that we produced,” said Dr Nizam, who designed the training programme.

He added that the training enhanced teachers with pedagogical skills and knowledge on climate change through a participatory teaching approach.

One of the participants, Oto Ota Tata Fu a Physics instructor at a teachers’ training college at Nuku’alofa, Tonga, felt honoured to be selected for the ToT.

“I intend to teach climate change studies to would-be teachers when I return home to resume my duties,” said Oto Ota.

He said Tongans wanted to know more about climate change and how they can deal with it especially after the tropical cyclone Ula, in which hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes

Also present at the launch were Deputy Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mazlin Mokhtar and IPI Director Prof Datuk Dr Sharifah Mastura Syed Abdullah.