Assessing the Implementation of the Youth for Environment in Schools Organization (YES-O) in Junior High Schools: Basis for Strengthening Environmental Sustainability Education Policies

Given the pressing global concerns and issues on the environment, the Department of Education in the Philippines urges schools to strengthen their roles in the pursuit of environmental awareness by enhancing environmental education. The Youth for Environment in Schools Organization (YES-O) continuously implements activities for students’ actions and movement toward safeguarding, protecting, and conserving the environment, which also targets the ‘Makakalikasan’ core value. This study aimed to assess the program implementation on environmental awareness and education through the lens of YES-O, and the findings will serve as potential inputs to existing policy relevant to sustaining effective school-based activities for the enhancement and strengthening of environmental sustainability education. The findings revealed that the performance of the implementing schools on the five mandated objectives of the organization was very satisfactory. Among the mandated objectives, the schools obtained an outstanding performance in Objective 1 while very satisfactory in the other remaining objectives. The other four objectives also positively contributed to the overall performance of the participating schools. The implementation of the YES-O program in schools can be further sustained through strengthening their networking, linkages, and partnership strategies to engage convergence and synergize the environmental education because of the mandated activities of the YES-O program implementation. Furthermore, monitoring and evaluation purposes should be strategically implemented to ensure that existing policy on environmental education are observed. Inputs to policy anchored from the findings of this study are provided to effectively implement through sustainable actions.