An analysis of environmental awareness and responsibilities among university students

Purpose: Earth, Sky, Water and air are the essential factors of life. Form the Vedic period importance has been given to the nature. Saints preach that rivers are our sisters and earth is our mother. In other words, natural factors are important in our day to day life. In this era man has moved towards instant things. He wants to enjoy every comfort in his life at any cost. Lavish consumption of previous environmental resources by man, either due greed of the developed to countries or for need by the poorer people of developing countries, caused a large-scale quality deterioration of environment. This thing has created a lot of environmental problems like global warming, ozone layer depletion, climate changes etc. It is universally accepted that if the present trend of environmental imbalance continues unchecked, it will lead to annihilation of all living beings from this planet. Not only in India, but in other countries too, efforts have been made to deal with some environmental problems. To get rid of environmental problems it is necessary that countries of the world should amend their environment and related policies. The education system should also be upgraded. But without awareness and involvement of people, at grass root level, the environmental problems cannot be solved successfully. The present study was undertaken to find out the environmental awareness and responsibility among University students in Vellore, Tamil Nadu and India. Design/methodology/approach: Primary data using convenient sampling through questionnaire and interview method and secondary data from wide range of literature through journals have been utilized. The statistical technique of percentage analysis and ANNOVA is used to determine the variables, which determine their behaviour towards environmental awareness and responsibilities among University students. Findings: The ANNOVA indicates that five variables viz., are you using environmental friendly products (0.037), prevention of water and pollution (0.049), being aware of environmental issues (0.043), ecological concern (0.023) and aware of environmental education, responsibility and laws (0.000) have significant relationship with degree programme of the respondents. Originality/ Value: A study on an analysis of environmental awareness and responsibilities among University students is the original work of the author.