ABSTRACT
Two events took place in 1988 which, although they occurred independently of each other, were to have a profound impact on the place of environmental education in the curriculum. One was the publication of the Education Reform Act and its legislation creating a National Curriculum. The other was a meeting, in May 1988, of the Council of Education Ministers of the European Community who agreed ‘on the need to take concrete steps for the promotion of environmental education…throughout the Community’. The resolution they adopted is one of many international approaches to the importance of education for the environment in recent years, all forming part of the pressure on ordinary citizens and world leaders to consider the implications of their decisions and actions on the world. A culmination of this was the Rio conference of 1992.
