Wilding educational policy: The case of Botswana

Abstract

Teaching and learning must be transformed in order to prepare learners to respond to escalating social, economic and environmental challenges. The primary purpose of this paper is to contribute to the process of wilding pedagogy. The lessons learned in this paper emerge mainly from a desktop study and educational excursions to a natural resources management centre in a rural village and an educational reserve. The excursions provide practical illustrations of learning in the wild by students. Responding to social, economic and environmental challenges can be facilitated through pedagogical policy interventions. In Botswana, educational policy seeks to promote learner-centred approaches to education. However, in practice, there are limited opportunities for a wilding of pedagogies. Most schools are constrained by a number of factors when trying to facilitate wildness in teaching and learning, yet the natural environment provides seemingly unlimited opportunities for active teaching and authentic learning. Though not explicitly stated, it is taken for granted that learning institutions are limited in their abilities to practise wild pedagogies due to budgetary constraints and a congested curriculum. This paper suggests that educational policy interventions can be implemented to enable transformative change that also promotes students’ engagement, discovery and autonomy while also learning in outdoor settings that support the aims of wild pedagogies.

Introduction

This paper advocates for wilding educational policy to promote pedagogical transformation in primary and secondary schools. It addresses opportunities and challenges that might arise from adopting a policy more amenable to wild pedagogies in the midst of dynamic educational processes (Haggis, 2007; Traverso-Yépez, 2008; Visviz et al., 2018). In the context of this paper on wilding educational policy, pedagogical transformation entails empowering the student to become self-governing and self-reliant in a learning environment. This would imply a constructivist learning paradigm where the student is given the chance to reflect and flexibly construct knowledge in a learner-centred environment. Wilding educational policy could energize educators to teach students how to create new knowledge and meaning from observations and interactions within natural environments.

Background information

There are robust models of education that are experiential, play-infused, physically active and located outside in nature, that can contribute to educational innovation in developing countries such as Botswana in southern Africa. Teaching needs to transform in order to prepare leaners to respond to escalating social, economic and environmental challenges. Transformation could be facilitated by wilding educational policy and intervening where experiential and play-infused education do not exist or have limited presence. Through this paper we aim to contribute to generating educational policies that imagine a different and more hopeful future. Furthermore, this paper contributes towards shifting education to a wild era in such a way that teachers and students are supported in returning to or opening up their own wildness. It is important, we assert, to learn in and through wild places.

The future generation is approaching a world that will be quite different from the past (Schleicher, 2018; UNESCO, 2016). Educational settings and practices are also changing at a fast pace due to significant social and environmental upheavals. Jickling et al. (2018) also suggest that Indigenous or local people around the world are concerned about how education has been controlled and imposed upon by colonial forces. Historically, Indigenous peoples have lived experiences and educations that are tied to the land and its sustainable processes (Manning and Harrison, 2018; Sarra and Shay, 2019).

In light of the above, this paper is guided by the question: in Botswana, can wilding educational policy create an educational situation where students’ learning and wild places flourish together? Teaching and learning must change in order to equip learners with the knowledge, skills and competencies to respond to social, economic and environmental challenges. As such, the purpose of this paper is to suggest the introduction of wilding educational policy to promote pedagogical transformation, especially in Botswana, where schools face congested curricula, syllabi and timetables (Mannathoko and Mamvuto, 2018; Mphale and Mhlauli, 2014). The current policies in schools in Botswana are not effectively enabling wild pedagogical practices. However, there are frameworks at international, regional and local levels that might provide opportunities for closing the above gaps and adopting a wild educational policy to support wild pedagogies.

Literature review

Contextual background

Wilding educational policy is possible in Botswana, as the wider policy developments in Africa, southern Africa and national policies provide ample opportunities for educational policy reforms and developments. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, 1992) provided opportunity for wilding educational practices by emphasizing the development and increase of ‘public awareness and knowledge concerning desertification and drought, including the integration of environmental education in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools’ (117). Agenda 21, chapter 36.3 promotes the employment of both formal and non-formal methods for environmental education. This promotion allows for educational policy changes that could introduce pedagogical models to graduate well-educated and ecologically and socially responsible citizens as per the Africa Agenda 2063 (African Union Commission, 2015). Africa Agenda 2063 states that Africa shall be a prosperous continent, driving its own development where the ‘unique natural endowments, its environment and ecosystems, including its wildlife and wild lands are healthy, valued and protected, with climate resilient economies and communities’ (3). The Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy on Environmental Education also prepares the ground for wilding education policy by positing that students through their own observations, discussions, and discoveries in natural landscapes become concerned enough to take action for transformation towards a sustainable future (Chee, 1998).

UNESCO (2019) also focuses on priority action areas that may enable transformation of education for sustainable development (ESD). Some of these priority action areas that are also essential in promoting wild pedagogy are:

Advancing policy, by mainstreaming educational and sustainable development policies in order to create an enabling environment for ESD and to bring about systemic change. UNESCO (2017) states that in order to initiate systemic transformation, relevant and coherent policies designed by ministries in cooperation with the private sector, local communities, academics and civil society are crucial: ‘by enabling learners to live and act in a changing world, ESD increases the quality of teaching and learning’ (48).

Transforming learning and training environments. This action area suggests that sustainable learning environments, such as eco-schools or green campuses with wilderness access, can empower educators and learners with knowledge, tools and strengthened capacities to integrate sustainability principles into their daily lives. Consequently, they develop into active citizens and stewards of the environment.

Building capacities of educators and learners. In this action area, learners are also powerful agents of transformation in the educational response to sustainable development. Educators and learners both acquire necessary knowledge, skills, values, motivation and commitment to introduce ESD, and make education relevant and responsive to today’s global challenges while helping society transition towards a richer sustainability.

The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) added the impetus to revisit education policy with a view to environmental education and potentially wilder pedagogies. AMCEN has requested governments to undertake a number of key actions in the area of environmental education. Among such actions is the development of a strategic approach to mainstreaming environmental education across all relevant institutions, including the design of programmes suitable for the primary, secondary and tertiary education sectors (United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 2019). Environmental education is one of the curriculum enrichment areas that could be facilitated by educational policy to promote wild pedagogical approaches in schools. The AMCEN agreement favoured Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African universities (MESA) initiatives, adding power to the call for educational policy revisions to create more opportunities for wild pedagogies (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2015). MESA initiatives also advocated education policy reforms in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region.

It is fortunate that favourable global and regional policy initiatives exist and complement national education policies in Botswana. Some of the national polices, for example, include: (a) National Environmental Education and Strategic Action Plan; (b) National Policy on Resources Conservation and Development; (c) School Environmental Education Policy (SEEP); and (d) Education and Training Sector Strategic Plan (Bird Life Botswana, 2015). The National Environmental Education Strategy and Action Plan of 2014–2018 states that environmental education embraces ecological issues, development practices and social concerns. Environmental education, then, is undertaken in the formal, non-formal and informal education sectors. Furthermore, informal environmental education includes many educative forces, such as media, religious activities, community groups (Kgotla) and one-to-one communication (Republic of Botswana, 2014–2018). The above policies and undertakings in environmental education in Botswana provide an encouraging framework for wilding educational policy. In addition, the SEEP of Botswana seeks to raise awareness and draws attention to the importance of conservation of natural resources by local communities. SEEP outlines nine educational components that play a role in promoting wilding educational policy. These components include: (a) birds for environmental education; (b) community knowledge; (c) environmental education action projects; (d) school grounds; (e) fieldwork; and (f) school environmental policy statement. The above components align with suggested opportunities for the implementation of wild pedagogies.

The benefits of wild pedagogies could include improvement in academic achievement, high-order learning, skills development and independence, learner engagement and play-based learning opportunities in the wild (Nature Play QLD, 2019). For example, the component of birds for environmental education states that birds are environmental indicators because they offer information about the state of the health of the environment. Birds are easy to attract to the school grounds and numerous bird studies can be used in various different topics and subjects that can open doors for the infusion of environmental education in the curriculum. The component of community knowledge states that the school curriculum can be enriched with local stories, histories and community experiences about how local people took care of environmental resources through totems, taboos, songs and other cultural practices. This component emphasizes perspectives that rarely appear in school learning documents and hence rarely reflect the kind of knowledge that has direct local relevance because local people are overlooked as sources of information. Supporting a pedagogy that enables learners to interact with community members to learn, for example, about local environmental history and local transformation can be central to wilding educational policy.

The component about school grounds states that school grounds and local environments can be an essential resource that provides wild learning opportunities such as carrying out studies of plant and animal life found in these grounds. In 1990 the National Conservation Strategy was approved in Botswana with the aim of promoting environmental conservation and sustainable development. The 1990 policy relates to wilding education by stressing the role of natural resources in providing for present generations as well as for posterity. The fieldwork component also emphasizes that the environment beyond the school grounds enables opportunities for learning. Issues that are explored during fieldwork can become action projects. Studies involving fieldwork offer opportunities to encounter real-life situations that stimulate dialogue and discussion as well as reflection about wild resources such as forests, rivers, wetlands or grasslands.

In 1994, the Revised National Policy on Education introduced environmental education (Botswana Government, 1994) as a mandatory innovation. However, this policy document did not provide a clear framework for wild pedagogies. The syllabi that came out of the 1994 policy were equally silent on use of wild spaces for teaching and learning. Therefore, there were no bases for wild pedagogies in schools even where there was an attempt to infuse environmental education. Although not specifically and categorically expounding wild pedagogies, the above existing policies in Botswana provide an enabling opportunity for the promotion of specific wilding educational policy, which is veritably a hope for the future. This paper also considers educational theories supporting wild pedagogies and support for policy interventions that facilitate wild pedagogies at institutional levels.

Conceptual background

Policy disruptions for innovations

For environmental education, wild pedagogies may not be entirely alien. But any disruptive innovation to existing teaching and learning practices requires re-enforcement through educational policy. Hasselbalch (2014) noted that not all disruptive innovations cause policy disruptions. However, disruptive innovations that are novel and fast-moving can catch regulators off guard, often leading to regulatory tightening. To avoid catching the regulators off guard, we suggest generating wilding education policies in readiness as schools move towards innovative teaching and learning. Careful introduction of wild pedagogies may necessitate the need for policies to regulate how quickly they are introduced and how schools change as a result.

Wild pedagogies call for a readjustment of how to conduct teaching and learning. Jickling et al. (2018) emphasize that wild pedagogies aim at ‘re-wilding education’ (x). Our understanding is that learning should be freed, at least in part, from the normal centrally controlled objective learning outcomes, and directed towards a more authenticate approach. Policy in this direction that is supportive of this kind of intervention is necessary to facilitate more meaningful teaching and learning processes in the natural environment. Exploratory approaches in the wild should be recognized and allowed to bear fruit. By exercising such freedom we do not suggest teaching and learning should not be well considered, structured and safely overseen. It should, and it should also be evaluated effectively to ensure that learning takes place. We suggest that disruptive pedagogical innovation, in the context of this article, occurs when changes to current characteristics of practice lead to different outcomes, future perceptions, and further impacts on practice. These changes are expected to be reflected in how active teaching and authentic learning are conducted in practice, in wild settings.

Policy for wild pedagogies

Learning in natural settings can be facilitated by educational policy that deliberately builds wild pedagogies into the curriculum to enhance active and authentic learning. Such policy could be used to direct a range of wild experiences as an entitlement for each student. To enforce the above, the policy could spell out the use of the local environment and community to offer learners exciting and stimulating experiences that inspire students in their learning. Wild pedagogies in practice would develop students’ social skills, independence and self-esteem through experiencing activities and learning from local places and natural landscapes (Jickling et al., 2018). These enriching experiences could be further stimulated by skills such as sketching in art, creative writing activities, enquiry, experiment, reflection, review, communication, problem solving and cooperative learning. Wilding educational policy would enhance the provision of wild pedagogies, and support and encourage the delivery of the curriculum, where most appropriate, in a natural setting. The natural setting does not necessarily mean far away in remote areas or in nature reserves. It could be within the school grounds or within the city where natural environments exist.

Wild pedagogies could make learning more engaging and relevant to young people and to nurture creativity (Nature Play QLD, 2019). We suggest a deliberate wild educational policy to support the realization of educational benefits which are currently compromised because educational policy is not specific on wild pedagogies. By suggesting wilding pedagogy through educational policy change, we envisage a more productive pedagogy that would enable the deepening of knowledge, skills and competencies to facilitate the understanding of more complex natural environments and promotion of positive attitudes towards the environment.

Methodology

The authors conducted a literature review focusing on relevant topics on policy for teaching and learning. This article was motivated by the Finse 2019 wild pedagogies conference attended by educators and practitioners from different continents and institutions. Shared insights on wild pedagogies arising from that gathering shaped conceptualization of our work in Botswana. The authors conducted 2 excursions to ‘experiment’ with wild pedagogies with 32 environmental education student-teachers in total. Each excursion was for one day only. The student-teachers involved were all locals except for two female students from the Seychelles islands studying at the University of Botswana. The student-teachers were taking environmental education methodology courses at levels three and four of their bachelors’ degree programme. Upon graduation, the student-teachers would be primary and secondary school teachers. The authors, who were the lecturers for the student-teachers, requested that the student-teachers document their experiences and feelings about the teaching and learning approaches. Analysis of these reports assisted the authors to explore and infer the benefits of wild pedagogies, and to further make the case for wilding education policy.

Illustrations from excursions of experiential learning activities in Kgetsi Ya Tsie Centre and Mokolodi Nature Reserve

Learning trip in Kgetsi ya Tsie (KyT)

The Department of Languages and Social Sciences Education (LSSE) at the University of Botswana offers diverse courses that also aim to support situated learning and bridge the gap between classroom learning, local communities and the wilderness. Situated learning incorporates a process of participation in communities of practice and involves learning outdoors by immersion in the community and absorbing its modes of action and lived experiences (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Teaching and learning activities in the natural environment may strengthen several initiatives that promote sustainable development goals. In Semester 1, 2019, the 32 student-teachers who participated in the 2 excursions also enrolled for the following courses: Environmental Conservation Education Strategies and Environmental Education Methodology. The students engaged in wild learning activities that bridged the gap between classroom learning and local communities.

On 1 November 2019, student-teachers embarked on a one-day learning trip to Kgetsi ya Tsie (KyT) Centre, a natural resource management centre in Lerala village, in Tswapong hilly region of Botswana. KyT consists mainly of rural women from 26 villages in Tswapong region. One of the missions of those rural women is to sustainably manage natural resources. Students learnt that KyT assists rural women to empower themselves, both socially and economically, by more effectively organizing their entrepreneurial activities (e.g. selling marula oil extracted from marula nuts and selling handmade clay pots from soil collected in termites mounds, and rearing chickens, goats and sheep) through the sustainable management of natural resources.

One of the aims of the course, environmental conservation education strategies, is to engage students by demonstrating the critical thinking, problem-solving and methodological skills necessary to implement conservation projects in the wild and in local communities. Learners should be able to apply and justify a range of practical processes and skills to mobilize the school leadership and the local community to engage in the conservation of natural resources. Some of the challenges that students noted during the above wild pedagogy trip include the lack of skills training for women in rural areas, safety concerns from some women during harvesting of natural resources in the wild far from the village, illiteracy and lack of adequate financial skills for the women. Below we present lived experiences and feelings from students’ reports:

We had to go on a visit to Kgetsi ya Tsie (KyT), community based organization in Lerala. The objective of the visit was to allow us to discover some of the natural resources used and their purposes. It was to enable us to go outside of Gaborone city and observe what local people are doing.

One of the local students had this to say:

We observed how to operate hydraulic compressor machine used to process morula products until the release of oil. The women mentioned that the first oil from morula is called virgin oil. They mentioned that the nuts can be processed into cooking oil, soap and facial oil. We were given morula oil to taste and experience how it feels.

Another student remarked:

On our way back to Gaborone, we drove through Sefhare village to visit women who started a business of moulding pots using different soil types. They pound the soils, mix with water and start moulding pots of any shape. When they have finished, they let them dry and heat them thereafter to give them a beautiful colour and strength. One of the challenges they experience is that they get soil from far away. The other challenge is that sometimes when the pot is too heavy it breaks apart when they try to heat it up. Amongst the women there was one who told us that she uses paper which she gathers from the environment to make ornaments. We had the opportunity to see some of the products she made from paper. As a student of Environmental Education I found this to be interesting as she collects paper to produce her products she cleans the environment in the process.

Another student commented:

We learned some of the strategies women used to conserve natural resources. Each member planted five morula trees per year. It was quite an interesting experience for me since I am an international student and in Seychelles Islands, especially the main island where I come from; I do not normally travel such long hours to another community. I was fascinated by how dry the land was, the trees, some looked dry. I remember passing by a village where I saw some of the houses that they live in, which was different from where I come from, but still interesting to see with my own eyes.

The above lived experiences and feelings provide illustrations of active and authentic learning experiences for those students. The experiences and feelings support our arguments for the introduction of wilding educational policy that might enable such teaching and learning practices, and to promote pedagogical transformation in learning environments. The challenges that are experienced are considered as opportunities and they re-energize the students to create new knowledge and meaning from observations and interactions with local communities in wilder places.

Educational trip to Mokolodi Nature Reserve

The trip to Mokolodi Nature Reserve involved student-teachers in their methodology course (environmental education methodology) during the third year of their teacher education programme at the University of Botswana. The aim of taking student-teachers to Mokolodi Nature Reserve, an environmental education centre, was to expose them to wild settings for teaching and learning approaches in environmental education. Student-teachers were introduced to the reserve’s education centre programme and they had a chance to explore the centre’s sanctuary in small groups. The tour was guided by a staff member from the centre accompanied by a lecturer from the University of Botswana. Apart from getting explanations from their guides, the students were supposed to make their own observations, draw the group’s attention to anything of interest, initiate discussions and record their experiences. As far as observations were concerned, the students were not subjected to predetermined outcomes for any of the activities. One of the activities required them to think about how else they would conduct a learning activity in the wild. Below we present students’ experiences, feelings and attitudes during the excursion. The presentation suggests excitement about nature walks, while learning about a variety of wild phenomenon that they discovered on their own. There was also enjoyment of the opportunity for free learning as they followed their own interests. One of the students reported:

Our intention was to get exposed to teaching and learning in the natural environment as future teachers. I realized that we were using constructivism theory approach because the learning was active, there was a guide and a lecturer but they were not always feeding us with the information. They encouraged us to discuss about anything we came across and to share with others.

The above narrative shows the benefits of taking learners into the wild spaces to learn freely and it further shows the realization of theories in practice. This reinforces authentic and active learning and actualizes them through practice. The students related that their first learning experiences in natural environments broke the monotony of classroom practices through active learning. The student-teachers reported they were ‘able to see vultures for the first time’. Vultures are endangered in Botswana as most farmers tend to kill them in the process of controlling other predators. The student-teachers were able to undo their own misconception that vultures attack living animals when they learnt that vultures feed only on dead carcasses. In addition, one of the students reported: ‘One very surprising fact I learnt was that most of the snakes in Botswana are actually not venomous and their bites are not very lethal. I have always thought that all snakes were deadly.’ The reports show how authentic learning played out in these non-classroom settings.

Another student narrated an overwhelming moment when visiting the reptile sanctuary: ‘It was a bit scary and exciting to see different kinds of snakes like black mamba, python, cobra, scorpions, rock monitor, and tortoise.’ The impact of the excursion in the natural environment was called a ‘life changing experience and one of the most important experiences of their life’ (Kellert, 1998; Liddicoat and Krasny, 2013: 293). And it gave one of the student-teachers the opportunity to challenge their assumptions about snakes.

It is on the basis of the above narratives from students that wild pedagogies could be given more support through changes in educational policy that seek to formalize it and make it an official part of the school experience. One of the students wrote: ‘I enjoyed the view and it was amazing to see beautiful vegetation without litter around. I like the simplicity of the reserve and I wish to work there someday.’ This shows the enthusiasm for wilderness settings and increased interest in conservation. One student described learning in the wild as very enlightening and inspiring: ‘It made me realize the beauty of nature and at the same time how difficult it is to recover the environment from human impacts such as overgrazing.’ The successes the students had during their opportunities to learn on their own demonstrate some of the positives of learners’ active engagement and wild pedagogies. The excursion to a natural environment gave the students the opportunity to reflect on practices in schools where they will be teaching in the near future, and one of the student-teachers concluded that, if ‘ever the government of Botswana could follow this kind of experiential learning many students would pass, it was the most fun and exciting educational adventure I have ever experienced’.

The above narratives about student-teachers’ experiences demonstrate how wild pedagogies can facilitate independent interpretation of nature, discovery, autonomy in learning while adventuring, expression of feelings and freedom to make their own conclusions about natural situations and contexts. While in Mokolodi Nature Reserve, students also engaged in playing environmental games in groups. A reflective activity that the students carried to campus was to effectively implement wild pedagogies in their own teaching of different subjects. Some mentioned how they would engage their learners in creating wild-based poems, creative essays, drawings, reports and science experiments. However, it also emerged that wild pedagogies was a new concept to students. Therefore, several exposures to wild-based activities emphasizing ideas of wildness in different contexts would promote more effective engagement and potentially lead to improved transformative learning and teaching across the curriculum in schools.

Discussion

Reiteratively, the purpose of this paper was to contribute to the process of wilding pedagogies. Wilding educational policy to promote wild pedagogies in schools would support quality education as it promotes student-centredness, active learning and transformative learning and may improve academic achievement. Successful implementation of an educational policy for wild pedagogies would require teachers to be prepared to transform their teaching activities. The two activities (field trips to KyT in Tswapong hills and Mokolodi Nature Reserve) confirmed that teaching and learning in a wild environment can be impactful, exciting and adventurous, and promote discovery while unveiling students’ intellectual potentials to learn, discover, and express their feelings. One of the student-teachers reported that rural women in KyT informed them that the initial oil from marula nuts is called virgin oil, and ‘the nuts can be processed into cooking oil, soap and facial oil’. The student-teachers had the opportunity to taste the oil and experience how it feels. The success of the field trips suggests the power of wild pedagogies and the challenges encountered when seeking to make these experiences happen.

The lack of similar educational opportunities across public schooling in Botswana suggests the importance of changing policy and making it more supportive thereof. Some of these wilderness-based activities triggered emotional experiences and indicated growing positive environmental attitudes among student-teachers. The final report assignment helped them recall visual images and what they learnt in the wild. In both field activities, students discussed their satisfactions, areas for improvement, and how they benefited from interacting with the natural world while applying the theory they learnt in the classroom. But these experiences are rare in Botswana; updating of national education policy and strategies to provide the opportunity to inspire teachers to implement wilder pedagogies is essential.

A wilder pedagogical policy may legitimize the integration of theoretical and practical real-world-based learning such as lived experiences of observing rural women in Lerala village extracting oil from marula nuts and trips in Mokolodi Nature reserve. This would also promote a more participatory and interactive learning environment which has been identified as being an important part of learning (UNESCO, 2016). Activities outside the classroom, in wilder places, can complement core academic content and empower learners to be active agents for environmental sustainability (Louv, 2008). This also calls for properly designed field activities that promote coordinated free learning and allow students to explore, discover and enjoy learning by acquiring context relevant knowledge and skills (Nature Play QLD, 2019).

Wild pedagogies promote active learning in an environment that cannot be re-created in the classroom. It actualizes first-hand experiences and constructivist learning. Therefore, wilder pedagogical policy should accommodate nature-based teaching and learning activities. The advantages that wilding educational policy would bring include complementing classroom-based learning; observation and analytical skills; and personal growth where students learn to take responsibility for their learning through fostering self-confidence (Hovorka and Wolf, 2009). One of the student-teachers who participated in Mokolodi Nature Reserve, for example, reported that if educational authorities in Botswana offered more experiential learning opportunities, student success would increase since it is not easy to forget these lived natural experiences. Along with changing policy, there is a need for capacity building to re-tool those educators who may not be familiar with wild pedagogies. The policy would enable the re-training of teachers, thereby increasing their competence in wild pedagogy practice. Based on the lessons learned from our own experiences offering wilder pedagogies, we have identified several possible barriers to wilding pedagogical practices that educational policy could address:

Infrastructure and access: in some schools, especially urban-based schools, natural environments are not very diverse. This may call for creativity to utilize some environmental features in different subjects, topics and academic levels facilitated by policy intervention to allow for wild pedagogical outings.

Human resource capacity: greater national-level capacity is needed at multiple levels to fully harness the gains possible from wilding policy interventions for educational purposes. Gaps exist in teaching approaches as well as competencies to conduct effective teaching and learning across levels and subject areas. Policy that supported pedagogical re-orientation could create a conducive environment that was previously not possible. Effective use of the natural environment may require a change in school grounds management in order to create natural space for learning and adjust the current planning of teaching and learning to incorporate the new tools and information available for wild pedagogical practices. For example, some portions of the school grounds could be left wild to allow teachers and students to engage in wild pedagogies.

Lack of clear direction and leadership: a lack of policy on wild pedagogies at the national level inhibits growth of innovative pedagogical approaches. Leadership from ministries of education and more broadly from schools is needed to encourage growth, particularly policy that gives teachers the flexibility to wild their teaching practices. Exercising leadership and reconceptualizing timetables and current subject-matter teaching practices would allow more time for wild pedagogies. There is likely also a need for policy that expands the opportunities for collaboration in schools in order to facilitate wider implementation of wild pedagogies.

Facilitating the implementation of wild pedagogies

Progress in the implementation of wild pedagogies could be facilitated through mechanisms for supporting and managing teaching and learning activities with the school system. School authorities could continue to support the development of the whole-school approach to teaching and learning that privileges each and every individual class access to natural environments. Support at the national level involving stakeholders working in the education sector is needed, including at school level to build systems which encourage collaboration. Teachers should also have opportunities to learn from their peers as to how they are implementing wild pedagogies.

Conclusion and recommendations

This paper asserts that wild pedagogies are relevant to developing the Botswana education system, as illustrated by the two case studies. However, as described in this paper, many challenges and barriers exist at the individual teacher, school, and larger policy levels. In Botswana, learner-centred pedagogy could be further enhanced by wilding pedagogies that would allow all students to be exposed to wildness. This would promote reconnection with nature, agency and the spirit of stewardship amongst learners for prosperity and sustainability of the natural environment. We acknowledge that wilding pedagogies does not require explicit regulatory approval. However, to give it more power and position in teaching and learning it should be named and explicitly supported. By so doing, schools would feel encouraged and permitted to practise wild pedagogies. We further emphasize that there is a need for an appropriate governance model that ensures effective and efficient co-existence of modes of teaching and learning. That includes both wild pedagogies and more traditional approaches, as we believe they work together to reinforce students’ learning. Wilding educational policy could also support and encourage broader teaching and learning systems that focus on up-scaling functional instructional processes, and increasing awareness of the need for harmonized pedagogical approaches.

Including wild pedagogies in a substantial way requires a systemic transformation approach. This may be challenging, but would provide a range of benefits and opportunities. Some of the opportunities offered by wilding policy may be realized in the short term, while others may occur over a longer period especially where unexpected impediments could be recognized and responded to. Change takes time. In order to achieve pedagogical transformation which attracts widespread support from educators/teachers/planners, the opportunities and challenges will need to be clearly communicated, the expectations of affected groups and sectors will need to be considered, and those who may not be familiar with the new practices will need to be supported properly as they re-imagine, re-tool and reskill.

Based on the insights from the literature and our experiences we recommend further research as follows. First, research needs to be conducted in exploring sustainable ways of maximizing the benefits of wild pedagogies in schools and to inform educational policy change. This could guarantee effective teaching and learning in schools in the face of the 21st-century skills imperatives. Second, research needs to be conducted on identifying and establishing training gaps for wild pedagogies. This could entail investigating sustainable strategies for both in-service and pre-service capacity-building programmes for wild pedagogies. Lastly, inspiring educational policy for wild pedagogies should be understood as an instrument upon which future teaching could be based.