Malawi has different environmental resources among which include: forests, water bodies, mountains, various flora and fauna and above all, it bears most fertile soils for agricultural. However, the cases of exploitation, degradation and exhaustion of these resources by human activities are increasing. Previous research indicated that such biased activities to the environment are due to lack of environmental education and awareness. Therefore environmental education in Malawi was introduced as one way for environmental management and conservation. Environmental education in Malawi is provided through the non-formal and formal education. In non-formal education the target is out of school people who are sensitized about environmental issues through the use of media. On the other hand, formal education is offered through incorporating environmental concepts in the curriculum of different subjects both in primary and secondary education. The idea and target of formal education is to make students to be environmentally aware after being taught. However, despite having similar curriculum and being taught by similar qualified teachers in secondary schools, previous research have indicated that students who resides in cities (urban) have high information than those who resides in the out stretch of the cities (rural). Urban areas are those areas which are located in cities or towns and mostly have people with high social-economic background with better amenities while rural areas are those located in countryside or out of town and mostly have people with low social-economic background. Some scholars have argued that the social-economic background of students often have an impact on how they perform in environmental education. Therefore, the purpose for this research was to find out the influence of social economic background on the level of environmental awareness, attitude and participation of students in Mpingu and Thunga (rural secondary schools). These schools were selected randomly from their clusters. The Data was collected using a questionnaire which was administered to 119 and 151 students (total of 270) respectively. Data analysis was done using T-Test and ANOVA where it was first processed in Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) and later cross-triangulation was also used. Lastly, the research findings indicated that there is significant differences among students where there is high level of environmental awareness, environmental participation and environmental attitude in students from better social background unlike students from poor social background who was rated to have low environmental awareness, environmental participation and environmental attitude. These findings will therefore help to generate recommendations to the authorities in listing priorities for environmental education to fit both for rural and urban setting in Malawi despite having different social-economic background.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION………………………………….1
1.1 Research incentives …………….…………………………………………….......2
i. Social economic status in Malawi…………………………......2
ii. Environmental challenges……………..……………….…........3
iii. Problem statement………………..……………….……………5
1.2 Research objectives and questions……………………………………..………….6
1.3 Research scope…………………………………………… ………………………7
1.4 Limitations of the study…………………………………………….......................7
1.5 Research content and process……………………………………………………..7
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………..…..9
2.1 Educational Systems in Malawi……………………………………………….......9
2.2 Environmental Education in Malawi……………………………………………..12
2.3 Environmental Challenges in Malawi…………………………………………….14
2.4 Relationship between social economic status and environmental education
Variables…………………………………………………………………………19
2.5 Policies on environmental education…………………………………………….21
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY…………………………....23
3.1 Mpingu secondary school………………………………………………………..23
3.2 Thunga secondary school……………………………………………………......23
3.3 Study variables…………………………………………………………………...24
3.4 Targeted Population and Techniques for Sampling.. …………………………….24
3.5 Tools for Collecting Data…………………………………………………….…..29
3.6 Analysis of Data……………………………………………………….………....29
3.7 Tool validity……………………………………………………………………...30
ii
CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSION OF RESULTS………………..…31
4.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………31
4.2 Descriptive analysis………………………………………………………………31
4.3 Social economic background’s influence on level of environmental awareness…37
4.4Social economic background’s influence on level of environmental
participation…………………………………………………………………………..41
4.5 Social economic background’s influence on level of environmental altitude…….46
4.6 Summary…………………………………………………………………………49
CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION AND SUGGECTION…………...51
5.1 Major findings…………………………………………………………………….51
I. Social economic background’s influence on level of environmental
awareness…………………………………………………………………..51
II. Social economic background’s influence on level of environmental
participation…………………………………………………………………52
III. Social economic background’s influence on level of environmental
altitude………………………………………………………………………53
5.2 Recommendations…………………………..……………………………..……..55
5.3 Areas of further study……………………………………………………………..57
References……………………………………………………………………….......59
Appendix 1: Study questionnaire…………………………………………………..63

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