Within the period from 16th to 18th of February 2012 the HSS in Indonesia conducted jointly with the Indonesian Environment Ministry a conference on following topic “Improved Implementation of the Green School Program at Indonesian Schools. More than 100 participants from all 33 provinces of the Republic of Indonesia attended this event, which took place in Solo, Central Java. They were mostly civil servants of the provincial governance and can be structured in following two groups: Per province one official of the provincial environmental board (BPLH) and a further official from the provincial agency for education (Dinas Pendidikan).

This conference had been conducted against the background of the reformulation of guidelines for the classification and examination of Green Schools in Indonesia through the Environmental Ministry supported by the provincial administrations. Regarding that, the Indonesian Government developed a guideline which provides learning target for the fields of environment and ecology, as well as further minimum requirements for determining of Green Schools. The modules on environment, which had been developed by Hanns Seidel Foundation, are also integrated within the curriculum of such schools. The conference comprised following highlights:

• Introduction of the Indonesian Green School Program through Mr. Ilyas Asaad, Head of Department for Environment and Communication. Mr. Ilyas Asaad emphasized in his presentation the need of a participatory approach, which includes representative of schools, students, their families and the surrounding neighborhood for the development of the Green School movement. This philosophy is also obviously in the new guidelines on Green Schools which focus more on participation and less on the former competitive aspect through the annual best Green School award (Trophy Adiwiyata) in Indonesia.

• The main keynote speaker was Professor Dr. Arief Rahman, MPd. who is Head of the Green Schools Commission and UNESCO representative in Indonesia. He elaborated in his speech the significance of schools for character-forming of young generation. According to him a school should not only communicate knowledge, but also general human values such as integrity, self-confidence, self-dependence as well as sense of justice. The interaction of the child and young adult with the direct environment and nature is a main precondition for the provision of the a.m. values.

• Excursion to five Green Schools in the area of Solo allowed the participants a good insight on best practices in developing and running such type of school.

The final presentation of the results of the working groups among the participants showed that all of the attending civil servants are committed to develop the Green School movement within their respective region. They understood the necessary requirements very well and will now transform their knowledge to the regional specifics in each province.