Policy Perspectives on Green School Guidelines: Connecting School Science with Gardens to Envision a Sustainable Future

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perspectives of teacher educators and policy experts on ‘Green School Guidelines’ and ‘One Garden One School’ educational policies in Nepal. This paper also examines how these educational policies help to attain sustainable development goals through education for sustainable development. It aims to explore ways for effective implementation of these policies for activity-based science learning in the school garden. The qualitative method was used to explore the perspectives of science and environment teacher educators and central level policy experts. The data were collected from semi-structured in-depth interviews and informal conversations. The data from both these sources were analyzed thematically around the concepts of education for sustainable development, its implementation strategies and challenges, and life skills development among students through school gardening activities. The study found that teacher educators and policy experts positively view the Green School Guidelines and One Garden One School implementation strategies. Nevertheless, to achieve policy aims, local organization needs to play a major role in the effective implementation of green school guidelines. The findings from this study are expected to encourage the Nepal government, local governments, and community schools to bring central level policies into local practices.