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addition, they must get skills to tackle environmental problems and solve them at the source in the particular area they are working in. The challenge in imparting such an environmental education to the technical and vocational streams (T V S) arises from the large variety of "trades" these technical personnel will undertake in their future careers. The training which these technical personnel get varies greatly, from the very formal and organised Engineering degree students at one end to the large number of agricultural workers (including independent farmers) who have had no formal or nonformal training but only "incidental" education on the job. This makes the environmental education task doubly challenging. The objective of environmental education should be to create awareness, impart knowledge, develop attitudes and skills, and encourage participation. Environmental education should be a continuous and lifelong process; it is interdisciplinary (like all problems in life) and should be viewed from all dimensions: Local, national, international and at the planetary level. What has been said above is a worldview. The weightage for the environmental risks will vary with the region. In India and generally in the Third World countries, poverty is the main pollutant. Whether poverty should be considered an environmental risk factor, needs to be debated and this will be discussed further in the next chapter. Arising directly or indirectly from poverty are the following pollutants: 1. Animal and human wastes 2. Adulteration of foodstuffs 3. Ignorance in handling pesticides and other toxic chemicals and smoke from incomplete combustion. 4. Unsafe working practices and conditions. • Rural Development Through Education System 148
