Rethinking Climate Education in Bangladesh

Across the country, from the hills of Bandarban to the riverbanks of Kurigram, from coastal Satkhira to urban Dhaka, education is quietly adjusting itself to a changing climate. Yet climate education itself is still largely stuck inside textbooks. 

Climate change in Bangladesh is no longer a distant concept discussed only in policy spaces or academic texts. It is already shaping everyday schooling in very real ways. It determines whether students can reach classrooms after overnight rain, whether school buildings remain usable during extreme heat, whether roads stay passable in flood-affected areas, whether students can safely return home during or immediately after school hours when lightning is occurring, and whether learning continues or is repeatedly interrupted by environmental disruptions.

These experiences are increasingly reflected in national trends. According to UNICEF, climate-related events including heatwaves, Cyclone Remal and flooding disrupted the education of approximately 35 million children in Bangladesh in 2024, with some students losing up to eight weeks of learning. This illustrates how climate change is no longer a future educational concern but a present reality affecting continuity of learning across the country.

In reality, students are already learning climate change through experience rather than curriculum. In some areas, the school journey begins with flooded paths or waterlogged roads after heavy rainfall. In others, it involves carefully navigating unstable hill terrain where monsoon rain can quickly make movement risky. Elsewhere, students miss school during flood events that isolate entire communities for days. At the same time, in urban settings, students face waterlogging after heavy rain, increasing heat stress in classrooms, worsening air pollution, the growing concern of earthquake vulnerability in densely packed educational infrastructure, and fire hazards in schools and surrounding built environments.

Despite these lived realities, classroom learning often remains disconnected from them. Students continue to study climate change as definitions and concepts, while their daily lives already reflect its impact in tangible ways, often focusing on exam-oriented learning rather than understanding or responding to real-world conditions.

Yet young people themselves are asking for something more meaningful. A UNICEF survey found that 95 percent of young people in Bangladesh want to learn more about climate change, while 78 percent reported that climate change has already affected their education. The findings suggest that students are not only aware of the issue but are also experiencing its consequences firsthand.

This gap is not just about curriculum content. It is about how education is structured and how climate realities are understood within it.

Teachers are at the center of this gap. Many respond to climate disruptions in practical ways, adjusting lessons during floods, guiding students during storms, or trying to recover learning time after interruptions. But they often do so without adequate training, locally relevant materials, or structured institutional support that would allow them to translate climate awareness into meaningful preparedness for students.

What becomes increasingly clear across different regions is that climate education is still largely theoretical. Students learn what floods, cyclones, or landslides are, but are rarely supported to connect that knowledge to their own surroundings or to build practical responses to environmental risks they already face.

This disconnect is particularly significant in a country where climate vulnerability is deeply localised. The risks faced by students vary dramatically depending on geography and environment. Some experience erosion and seasonal flooding, others face landslide risks and unstable ground, while coastal areas deal with cyclones, salinity and water scarcity. Urban students, meanwhile, experience a different set of challenges including extreme weather events, pollution, drainage congestion, fire and structural vulnerability in densely built settings. Yet climate education often remains standardised, offering the same content regardless of these differences.

At the same time, schools themselves are increasingly affected by environmental stress. Classrooms are disrupted by floods, access routes become unsafe during heavy rainfall, extreme heat affects learning conditions, and in some cases structural vulnerabilities raise concerns during natural hazards. Increasingly, such disruptions are becoming a routine feature of the educational landscape rather than isolated events.

The scale of the challenge is also reflected in education infrastructure. According to UNESCO, nearly 16,000 educational institutions in Bangladesh were affected by climate-related disasters in 2023. This highlights the need to view climate education not only as a subject to be taught but also as part of a broader effort to build climate-resilient education systems.

This raises an important question about what climate education should actually achieve. If students are already experiencing climate impacts in their daily lives, education must do more than explain what climate change is. It must help them understand how to navigate risks, respond effectively, and build resilience within their communities. 

Achieving this requires climate education to become more experiential, locally relevant and grounded in everyday realities. It should teach students how to act during floods, storms, heatwaves, or heavy rain. It should help them recognise risks in their own environments and develop practical awareness that is relevant to where they live and study. It should also ensure that schools themselves are prepared to function safely during climate disruptions.

Teachers will be central to this transformation, but meaningful change will require sustained institutional support, investment and capacity development. They need training, resources and teaching materials that reflect local challenges. They need more organized institutional support that recognises climate disruption as a periodic challenge rather than an occasional emergency.

Most importantly, there needs to be a shift in how climate education is understood. It is not only about knowledge; it is about preparedness, resilience and the ability of education systems to continue functioning in a changing environment.

Students in Bangladesh are not waiting to encounter climate change in the future, they are already navigating its consequences every day. If education is to remain relevant, it must reflect that reality and prepare learners not only to understand a changing climate, but to live and thrive within it.