Environmental Literacy and Vocational Education: Towards Biodiversity Conservation in Rural Communities in Cross River State

Abstract

The study explored the relationship that environmental literacy and vocational education have with conservation of biodiversity in Cross River State. Two research questions and hypotheses each were formulated to guide the study. Multistage sampling procedure, and correlation research design, were adopted for the study. The population of the study was 17,588 adult residents mostly farmers, artisans, fishermen and petty traders consisting of 8798 males and 8790 females. The sample of this study was 679 residents drawn from 12 villages in the 6 selected local government area. Three research instruments were employed for data collection in this study. These included the “Environmental Literacy Scale”, designed to measure the level of environmental awareness, knowledge, and attitudes among rural community members; the “Vocational Education Practices Assessment”, developed to evaluate the extent to which rural-based vocational training incorporates environmentally sustainable skills; and the “Biodiversity Conservation Practices Questionnaire (BCPQ)”, created to assess conservation behaviours and sustainable resource-use practices within rural communities with reliability coefficient of  0.92. Data analysis was conducted using Pearson product Moment Correction Analysis. The findings of the study revealed that environmental literacy education is significantly related to conservation of biodiversity in Cross River State and vocational education can significantly impact on conservation of biodiversity in Cross River State. Based on the findings, it was recommended that a compulsory environmental literacy programme should be enhanced by the government both in school and in the community to promote conservation; and that government should create opportunity for job creation and enhance vocational studies into other fields of endeavor to shift people away from directly exploiting biodiversity.