Teachers’ evaluation of recent changes in the school subject environmental knowledge

Abstract

Nowadays, in Hungary, the Framework Curricula determine the requirements of education. Currently, education is provided by the requirements of the 2012 and 2020 National Core Curricula (2020, hereinafter NAT). The latter shall be applied in the ascending system from the 2020/2021 school year onwards. With the introduction of the new NAT, several changes have taken place in the subjects. These changes also had a major impact on the subject of environmental education. Our research aimed to assess the knowledge of environmental education educators on the topic of wildlife and to examine their views on the new 2020 NAT. The results presented in the article show that the topic of wildlife, which was the 2nd-grade curriculum according to the 2012 NAT, will be left out of the lower grade curriculum with the introduction of the 2020 NAT. This step could deprive students of any knowledge at school about this topic. The research carried out reveals that teachers in the lower grades of public education do not have adequate and accurate knowledge of the subject.