Discover how the climate crisis in education is being addressed through Pakistan’s bold transformation. Learn why CSESI is reshaping the future of learning with both risks and rewards.
Climate crisis in education
The climate crisis in education Fear no more; it is here. From classrooms submerged under floodwater to heat waves that students and teachers feel as they walk into school, students and teachers in Pakistan are seeing the strong effects of climate change. Pakistan is now pursuing an innovative intervention: the Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative (CSESI). This ambitious proposal has the potential to reshape the education system with climate-resilient policies, curriculum, and infrastructure.
As one of the world’s most vulnerable climate countries, Pakistan can take the lead. Pakistan also secured an agreement with UNESCO and Save the Children in July 2025 to prepare for the education revolution on climate awareness. Here’s why it is important and how this bold educational transformation can win hearts by telling the ugly truth.
Table of Contents
- Immediate call for climate-smart education
- What is CSESI, and why does it matter?
- Pakistan CSESI Workshop: Take Home Messages
- How climate change disrupts learning.
- Embedding climate into the curriculum
- Teacher training and capacity building
- Infrastructure that survives crisis.
- STEM and Technology: Supporting Problem Solvers of the Future
- Global Perspectives: How Pakistan is Leading the Way
- High-quality image suggestions with SEO tags
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- People Also Ask (PAA)
Immediate call for climate-smart education
Historically, Pakistan has seen substantially adverse weather shocks. In 2022, floods displaced 33 million people, with thousands of schoolchildren dislocated from their education. These weather shocks are disrupting the education system as a whole by closing schools, damaging infrastructure, and disrupting teaching.
Key Points:
- Climate change has rendered the traditional education system vulnerable.
- Pakistan is moving towards resilience in its national learning systems.
What is CSESI, and why does it matter?
The Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative (CSESI) is a global education reform movement led by UNESCO and Save the Children. This initiative is focused on assisting vulnerable countries, such as Pakistan, in developing education systems that mitigate climate risks, endure climate change, and thrive. This project supports countries in their efforts to build climate-resilient education systems through four pillars: policy, curriculum, teacher training, and infrastructure reform. While the goal is to obtain green education, this project won’t sacrifice academic integrity.
Key Points:
- CSESI supports countries to consider climate education across all levels.
- Pakistan adopted this initiative in July of 2025 as explored during a national workshop in Islamabad.
Pakistan CSESI Workshop: Take Home Messages
The CSESI led workshop in Islamabad on July 2nd and 3rd, 2025 engaged key stakeholders from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Climate Change, and partners from UNESCO, Save the Children, and Education Child rights and Education.
Key outcomes from the workshop:
A National Climate Education Roadmap
Teacher training programs for all national schools
Commitment to retrofitting school infrastructure for improved climate-resilient standards
Key Points:
- Pakistan is one of the first countries to align national education to the CSESI framework.
- Policy implications noted included intra-cross-sectoral dialogue and collaboration between education and climate ministries.
How climate change disrupts learning.
From extreme heat, making classrooms unusable, to floods that wash schools away, the effects are both visceral and direct. The most affected are rural students—especially girls, whose school leave is extended due to natural calamity. Once students have experienced continual displacement or trauma, there is a failure in learning.
key Points:
- Climate change exacerbates inequality in access to education.
- Schools face damage to infrastructure and are proposed to not be available for ongoing learning, safety, or educational stability.
Embedding climate into the curriculum
CSESI supports ensuring that climate science, sustainability actions, and disaster preparedness are embedded in the national curriculum. For students, this might mean managing water and environmental systems and creating emergency plans.
Pakistan has committed to review and revise textbooks from 2026 to include green topics.
key Points:
- Revision to the curriculum will include sustainability and local climate content.
- Green education will empower students to act locally in their communities.
Teacher training and capacity building
Teachers are at the center of education. Without teachers being adequately trained, a climate-smart curriculum has no hope of success. The government of Pakistan is planning to provide either in-person or digital workshops (with the potential for both) that can prepare teachers to effectively deliver climate content to their students. The workshops will also include emotional preparedness—equipping teachers to help children manage the trauma of climate disasters.
Key Points:
- Teachers will be provided standardized training modules.
- Climate literacy should include a focus on teachers’ emotional literacy as well as technical literacy.
Infrastructure that survives crisis.
Together, architects are rethinking the notion of what a school can look like. In Pakistan, elevated classrooms, solar-powered buildings, and floating tea shops (for dubious tea) are some examples of designing schools for flooding and areas affected by heat waves (natural ventilation). The aim here is to promote a sustainable, affordable, and flexible project.
With this means working with government architects and inviting private funders to co-design.
key points:
- Infrastructure must be redesigned, and we must rethink what schooling will look like in disasters of floods, heat waves, or droughts.
- Community involvement is key in rebuilding safe schools.
STEM and Technology: Supporting Problem Solvers of the Future
No climate-smart education is complete without technology. Pakistan has launched digital learning modules focused on climate science, AI-assisted learning platforms and STEM clubs in schools, and TikTok Pakistan’s STEM Partnership is now also promoting educational content to youth.
Key points:
- STEM education can propel the next generation of climate leaders.
- Technology helps fill the access gap in climate education.
Global Perspectives: How Pakistan is Leading the Way
Although Pakistan is extremely vulnerable to climate change, the leadership it is taking with the CSESI framework is beginning to be recognized worldwide. Pakistan is providing a model for other developing countries by taking proactive steps to shape education to better respond to climate disruption in conjunction with the launching of partnerships with international organizations like the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
Key Points:
- Pakistan’s utilization of CSESI provides hope for other climate-vulnerable areas.
- Educational reform needs to be closely aligned with environmental justice.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What does Climate-Smart Education mean?
Climate Smart Education is a framework designed to allow education systems to plan for the anticipated and unanticipated impacts of climate change through the delivery of climate science to students in the curriculum, improvements in infrastructure, and the preparation of teachers.
2. Why is CSESI important in Pakistan?
Given that Pakistan is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world, CSESI helps build educational resilience and prepares communities for the future.
3. How will schools change with CSESI?
Schools will provide climate-resilient buildings, a relevant curriculum, and trained teachers that can address both academic and emotional challenges presented by climate change.
4. What is the teacher’s role in climate education?
Teachers will help students understand responsible sustainability, approaches to resilience, and coping strategies through flexible climate-informed pedagogy.
5. When will the new curriculum be rolled out?
Beginning in 2026, new curriculum will be matched with new textbooks and new teaching methods in the provinces.
People Also Ask (PAA)
Q1: How does climate change affect education in Pakistan?
Floods, heat waves, and natural disasters can interfere with the school calendar, damage infrastructure, and limit sustainable pathways to learning—particularly in rural and marginalized settings. Girls experience disproportionately high rates of dropout due to climate-displaced populations.
Q2: Who is promoting climate-smart education in Pakistan?
UNESCO, Save the Children, The Global Partnership for Education (GPE), and TikTok Pakistan are all active partners of climate literacy and infrastructure reform.
Q3: How can students learn climate smart?
By learning sustainability, water management, disaster response, and critical thinking through textbooks, updates, tech-integrated classrooms, and STEM based learning.
The conclusion: one heroic step forward, one difficulty at a time.
Pakistan’s courageous commitment to climate-smart education using the CSESI framework is impressive but also necessary. As the route ahead includes challenges such as financing, speed of implementation, and public awareness, the first stage is an impressive example for other countries around the world. Any integration of climate literacy, emotional resilience, and sustainable infrastructure into education demonstrates an immediate and massive broad shift—a further recognition of the urgency of climate change, but also giving the next generation the responsibility to respond.
Bold victories? Pakistan is leading the developing world in both awareness and, importantly, action.
Bitter, but true? Without rapid, deep-based implementation and monitoring, the plan is likely going to be just another policy on paper.
Are you an educator, policymaker, student or concerned citizen? Now is your chance to support climate-smart learning!
Visit PresentPakistan.com to find out how you can:
Raise awareness about Climate Smart Education for Sustainable Investment.
Be a volunteer for teacher training programs.
