In the first step, we reviewed existing international frameworks on CCE and related education system responses. These included, climate-smart education systems framework (GPE, 2023a), getting climate-ready: a guide for schools on climate action (Gibb, 2016), the CCE ambition report card (Kwauk, 2022), and action for climate empowerment (UNESCO & UNFCCC, 2016). These frameworks emphasize complementary but distinct aspects of CCE, ranging from policy ambition and system strengthening to whole-school approaches, coordination, and climate justice. The key dimensions identified across these frameworks are summarized in Table 1.

Although these frameworks offer valuable lenses on specific elements of CCE, they tend to prioritize particular entry points, and if taken individually, they do not provide a sufficiently integrated structure for assessing how CCE is embedded across governance levels, nor how policy intent translates into educational practice and system capacity. To address this limitation, common themes and gaps were extracted across frameworks and synthesized into a more comprehensive analytical structure.

The resulting framework, referred to in this study as the CCE-PPP, was designed and organized across four interrelated domains: national-level policy and planning, education-sector delivery, school-level coordination and practice, and cross-cutting equity and inclusion considerations. This structure aimed to capture both vertical alignment across governance levels and horizontal linkages between policy commitment, financing, implementation, and learning processes. Although the framework was defined prior to empirical analysis, its indicators and key areas were refined iteratively as it was applied to the Central Asian context, ensuring contextual relevance without altering the core analytical structure.

Table 2 presents an overview of the CCE-PPP framework, outlining the framework’s levels, dimensions, and key analytical themes.

The second step involved using this new framework to analyze national-level policy and strategy documents retrieved from government repositories, official legal databases, and national submissions to UNFCCC. Reports from multilateral partners such as UNESCO, the World Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe were also included when relevant.

Document selection followed three criteria:

A total of 38 documents published in English and Russian between 2013 and 2024 were reviewed. A full list of the national documents assessed can be found in Appendix A. All documents were coded deductively using the CCE-PPP framework, which guided the analysis and ensured consistent interpretation across countries. Coding focused on identifying the presence, scope, and operationalization of CCE across policy domains.

In addition to document analysis, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 key stakeholders from Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and one regional organization. Most interviews were conducted individually, aside from two small group interviews. Participants represented a range of stakeholder groups involved in CCE, including government and Ministry of Education officials, teachers, university leadership, civil society and environmental organizations, international development agencies, and regional youth climate networks. This diversity of perspectives enabled the study to capture experiences and insights from policy, education, civil society, international partner, and youth engagement contexts across Central Asia.

The interview guide was developed based on the CCE-PPP framework and piloted informally with regional partners to ensure clarity and relevance. Interviews were conducted between 2023 and 2024, in either Russian or English, and lasted approximately 45-60 minutes. All participants provided informed consent, and ethical approval was obtained through the institutional procedures governing the UNESCO-commissioned study. To protect confidentiality, interview excerpts are cited using professional role descriptors rather than personal identifiers.

In the third step, findings from the document analysis and interviews were triangulated through thematic comparison. Interview data were analyzed thematically according to the CCE-PPP framework and then compared with the document analysis to identify areas of convergence and complementarity. This triangulation process strengthened the analytical robustness of the study by ensuring that the analysis drew on both formal policy commitments and stakeholder perspectives on implementation. This process also revealed seven emerging themes:

These themes were then mapped into the existing dimensions of the CCE-PPP framework and used to refine the framework’s indicators by incorporating additional nuances to reflect the key challenges and opportunities identified across the two datasets (Appendix B provides a detailed description of the indicators underpinning each dimension).

The integration of seven emerging themes and the rationales are summarized as follows:

“Lack of unified terminology and unclear conceptual framing of CCE”, together with “gaps between policy ambition and implementation”, were integrated into the “policy commitment to CCE” dimension. These themes relate to the extent to which CCE is supported by coherent policy visions, clearly articulated objectives, and implementation mechanisms, making them central expressions of policy commitment.

“Institutional communication and coordination barriers” were integrated into the “inter sectoral coordination” dimension because they reflect the effectiveness of collaboration and information sharing across ministries, sectors, and levels of governance, which are fundamental aspects of coordinated CCE planning and implementation.

“The under recognized role of civil society leadership and community-based CCE initiatives” was integrated into the “capacity building” dimension because these initiatives represent important sources of knowledge, expertise, partnerships, and learning opportunities that strengthen the capacity of education systems to deliver CCE.

“The lack of culturally relevant and locally grounded teaching and learning resources” was integrated into the “teaching and learning” dimension because it directly relates to the design, content, and delivery of CCE, particularly the extent to which learning materials support effective teaching in diverse educational contexts.

“The lack of youth leadership in CCE planning and decision making”, as well as “climate related migration and social vulnerability”, were integrated into the “equity and inclusion” dimension because both themes concern whose perspectives, needs, and lived experiences are represented in CCE policies and practices, particularly those of groups facing structural barriers or disproportionate climate impacts.

Following the synthesis and integration of emerging themes, a codebook was developed to capture the frequency of coded references identified under each framework dimension (see Table 3).

For the document analysis, one coded reference represents a relevant evidence entry extracted from the national policy documents. For the interviews, one coded reference represents a relevant interview excerpt or quotation assigned to a framework dimension. These frequencies indicate the relative prominence of different themes within the qualitative dataset and help illustrate where policy documents and stakeholder perspectives most frequently converged, diverged, or complemented one another.

However, higher coding frequencies should not be interpreted as measures of the extent or effectiveness of CCE efforts within a particular dimension. Instead, they reflect the degree to which a topic emerged during the analysis, which may indicate areas of active policy attention, persistent challenges, or recurring concerns raised by participants.

At the national level, all four countries frame climate change as a strategic environmental and development concern. However, when assessed against CCE-PPP indicators for policy commitment, financing, and monitoring, CCE remains weakly institutionalized within national governance frameworks.

Analysis of national policy documents indicates that only a limited number of national strategies explicitly link education to climate change, occurring primarily in NDCs and environmental policy (see Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2021a; Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023; Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, 2021; Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2021). Among the documents that do reference education, policy objectives tend to emphasize awareness-raising or public information. More strategical commitments such as curriculum reform, structured teacher preparation, or the development of learner competencies are less articulated. For example, Kyrgyzstan’s first NDCs outlines intentions to integrate environmental and climate-related issues into the education system (Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2021c), yet subsequent education strategies provide limited guidance on implementation (Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2021b). In Tajikistan, climate change is primarily addressed through disaster risk management and sectoral adaptation policies, with education referenced as a cross-cutting sector (Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, 2019). Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan similarly frame education as part of broader efforts to cultivate “ecological culture” or environmental responsibility, without adopting standalone national strategies dedicated to CCE (Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021; Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2019).

Interview data align with this documentary finding. Respondents across all four countries described ambiguity regarding institutional responsibility for CCE and noted that education ministries are rarely positioned as lead actors within national climate governance structures. Interviewees in Tajikistan also emphasized the centralized nature of climate governance and the limited space for education-sector leadership. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, respondents noted that climate-related education initiatives are often driven by project-based environmental programs or international donors rather than embedded within education system planning. A regional youth respondent summarized this problem as a communication gap, stating that cooperation with state-linked bodies, including schools and universities, had been the “weakest” form of interaction because of rigid procedures and limited long-term vision. These testimonies suggest that gaps in CCE integration are rooted in governance structures rather than in isolated implementation challenges.

This limited institutionalization is also reflected in national financing and monitoring arrangements. Among the reviewed national budgets and strategies, no explicit or dedicated financing mechanisms for CCE were found. Where climate-related education expenditures could be traced, they were generally embedded within project-based environmental initiatives or programs funded by international donors (Asian Development Bank, 2023; United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2022; World Bank, 2023). In the NDCs of the four countries, environmental and economic indicators were prioritized in their national monitoring frameworks, with limited evidence of systematic tracking of education-related climate outcomes. An interviewee from the Kyrgyz Republic government stated directly that there was “no national M&E system” for CCE, emphasizing that this lack of education-linked indicators weakens the accountability of the education sector and reduces opportunities for CCE learning.

These findings suggest that although climate change is recognized as a national priority, weak policy integration, financing, and accountability mechanisms continue to constrain the institutionalization of CCE.

The effectiveness of national CCE policies ultimately depends on the capacity of education systems to translate policy commitments into curriculum, teacher preparation, and learning resources. At the level of the education sector, the analysis based on the CCE-PPP framework points to partial and uneven integration of CCE within curriculum frameworks, teacher development systems, and broader capacity-building efforts.

Across the reviewed education-sector documents, climate-related themes are more often treated as subject content within natural science, geography, or disaster risk reduction (Rozhdestvenskaya & Korotenko, 2021; Zhilbaev et al., 2022). On the other hand, the study found limited or inconsistent references to interdisciplinary learning, socio-emotional dimensions, or action-oriented pedagogies, a gap that interviewees also noted. Only a small subset of documents explicitly addresses teacher preparation or professional development in relation to climate change, and even fewer specify how teachers are expected to translate climate concepts into classroom practice. One exception is the Kyrgyz Republic, where education action plans include measures to support climate change education through teacher training, curriculum development, and teaching materials (Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2013, 2021a). However, similar provisions are largely absent from national teacher standards and professional development frameworks in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. A Kazakhstani teacher described teacher preparation as a first-order challenge, noting that “training is needed at all levels and for all specialities” when climate issues are added to school practice.

Educators and civil society actors across all four countries also reported limited institutional support for adapting content to local contexts and reliance on externally produced teaching resources. These challenges were described in both urban and rural settings, suggesting system-wide capacity constraints rather than isolated gaps.

Despite these institutional constraints, the reviewed policy documents also recognize the role of non-formal education, civil society organizations, and youth organizations in supporting climate awareness, capacity building, and public engagement (Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2021a; Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2021; Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, 2015; Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2019). Interviewees from Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan provided several examples of non-formal education initiatives led by NGOs and youth organizations that employ participatory and experiential approaches to climate learning, including youth-led environmental projects and community-based disaster preparedness activities. However, these initiatives are often short-term and remain weakly integrated into formal education systems, limiting their influence on national teacher development, curriculum planning, and institutional decision-making. A respondent from Tajikistan similarly cautioned that youth participation in Central Asia is often symbolic instead of creating substantive changes:

These findings indicate that education-sector capacity remains uneven across the four countries, particularly in relation to teacher development, locally relevant learning resources, and the integration of non-formal innovations into formal education systems.

At the school level, CCE-PPP indicators focus on school planning, coordination, partnerships, and localized climate action. Across the four countries, evidence suggests that school-level engagement with CCE remains fragmented in planning and contingent on external support.

Current policy documents in these four countries have provided limited guidance on how schools are expected to operationalize climate-related learning, especially in regard to school-based climate action and partnerships with local communities. Climate-related initiatives, where present, are typically framed as pilot projects or extracurricular activities rather than as integral components of school governance. Evidence from our interviews illustrated how these policy gaps manifest in practice. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, school-level climate activities were frequently described as project-based initiatives supported by NGOs or international partners, with limited continuity once external funding ends. In the Kyrgyz Republic, respondents highlighted NGO-supported efforts to improve school safety and energy efficiency, while noting persistent challenges for rural schools and students with disabilities. In Tajikistan, interviewees emphasized that centralized governance structures leave limited space for schools to adapt climate-related learning to local environmental conditions or to build sustained partnerships with communities.

These policy limitations have practical consequences for how schools engage with climate education. Climate-related teaching and learning were often perceived as an additional responsibility across the four countries, rather than an integrated component of core teaching practice, particularly in contexts where staffing and material resources are already stretched. Respondents in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan emphasized that limited staffing and heavy administrative workloads restrict opportunities for sustained community engagement, while interviewees in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan noted that schools rarely receive dedicated resources or formal mandates to support climate-related initiatives. A Tajikistan NGO respondent argued that the Ministry of Education could “use the accumulated experience and materials of NGOs and international organizations” by establishing a platform under the Ministry’s auspices, but also emphasized that “without legislative support,” implementation is especially difficult in remote areas where teachers already have heavy responsibilities and low salaries. This situation shows that CCE in these countries remains peripheral to everyday school operations rather than systematically supported within education systems.

Equity and inclusion constitute a cross-cutting dimension of the CCE-PPP framework, shaping how climate education is accessed, experienced, and acted upon across different levels. Across the four countries, NDCs commonly referenced women, youth, vulnerable groups, rural populations within broader commitments to social inclusion and participation in sustainable development (Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, 2021c; Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2023; Government of the Republic of Tajikistan, 2021; Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 2021). However, the extent to which these commitments inform concrete CCE design and implementation remained unclear.

Groups such as learners with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and linguistically marginalized communities are largely absent from climate-related education policy texts. Where equity considerations do appear, they are typically referred to in generalized terms, such as principles of equal access or participation for vulnerable groups, without clear implications for curriculum design, teacher preparation, learning materials, or resource allocation. A Kyrgyz Republic respondent noted that inclusion issues were often treated as the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, even though climate vulnerability and educational exclusion cut across sectors. As a result, equity functions more as a normative aspiration than as an operational criterion guiding CCE planning and delivery.

Interview data further illustrate how these policy gaps are experienced in practice. Respondents in Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic emphasized that rural communities face intersecting challenges related to climate vulnerability, infrastructure constraints, and limited educational resources. Despite these compounded risks, CCE initiatives often proceed without explicit attention to differentiated learning needs or structural barriers, which may risk reproducing existing inequalities instead of addressing them. In the Kyrgyz Republic, one respondent described how mountainous conditions and multi-floor school buildings complicate access for students with physical mobility challenges, whose needs often remain unaddressed. In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, interviewees noted that inclusive education policies and reforms have gained greater visibility at the national level, particularly with respect to disability inclusion and gender equity. However, these inclusive education agendas are rarely referenced in climate-related learning or teacher training materials. A respondent from Kazakhstan emphasized the need to connect CCE more closely with local realities and inclusive approaches:

Interview data from the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan further indicate that limited availability and use of data disaggregated by location, disability status, language, or socioeconomic background constrain the ability of education authorities to identify differentiated needs, monitor participation, or design targeted interventions. When considered alongside the patterns observed in policy documents, these findings point to equity and inclusion functioning more as stated principles than as operationalized dimensions in education. Although inclusive commitments are widely articulated, they are not yet consistently embedded within the planning, implementation, or evaluation of CCE, which limits their capacity to respond to differentiated vulnerabilities and lived realities.

The first research question examined how national CCE policy and practice can be assessed more holistically through a shared analytical framework. Applying the CCE-PPP framework shows the value of a multi-level perspective that moves beyond fragmented or sector-specific assessments by examining national governance, education-sector delivery, school-level implementation, and cross-cutting equity considerations together. This approach makes visible not only the presence of CCE references, but also how responsibilities, resources, and monitoring mechanisms are distributed across governance levels. In doing so, it highlights structural misalignments, such as situations where ambitious climate commitments are not matched by education-sector mandates or school-level support. The framework therefore contributes to the literature by operationalizing calls for whole-of-system approaches to climate education (Gibb, 2016; GPE, 2023a) in a way that remains analytically tractable and context-sensitive.

Beyond its analytical function, the CCE-PPP framework also serves as a practical planning tool. It provides a structured basis for defining CCE indicators, mapping existing policy and practice, identifying under-addressed areas, and tracking progress over time, as well as supporting closer alignment among climate education priorities, equity and contextual relevance, and broader adaptation goals. Its adaptable design offers potential for application in other regions facing similar challenges.

Applying the CCE-PPP framework across four Central Asian countries reveals a region-wide pattern of uneven institutionalization of CCE. While climate change is widely recognized as a strategic development concern, education remains weakly positioned within national climate governance. This finding aligns with international evidence showing that education is often treated as a supportive or symbolic component of climate policy rather than as a core adaptation strategy (Kwauk, 2022; UNESCO & MECCE, 2023).

Analysis based on the CCE-PPP dimensions helps explain this pattern. First, structural misalignment across governance levels weakens education system planning, financing, and accountability mechanisms, limiting the effective institutionalization of CCE. This pattern aligns with findings in the literature showing that education policy alignment with climate goals often remains aspirational rather than operational (Berryman & Sauvé, 2016; Huang et al., 2021).

Second, the framework highlights how capacity constraints at the education-sector and school levels reinforce narrow pedagogical approaches. In the four Central Asian countries, climate-related learning is most often addressed within individual subjects, with limited evidence of cross-curricular integration. This reflects long-standing rigid curricula, as well as education systems that tend to favour safer approaches and offer limited support for interdisciplinary, socio-emotional, or action-oriented teaching. Such findings resonate with global analyses showing that most education systems continue to emphasize cognitive learning outcomes while under-supporting transformative or participatory approaches to CCE (Leichenko et al., 2022).

Third, the cross-cutting equity dimension reveals a persistent gap between inclusive rhetoric and implementation. Although women, youth, and vulnerable groups are frequently referenced in national strategies, the absence of disaggregated data, targeted indicators, and inclusive pedagogical guidance constrains meaningful integration of equity into CCE practice. This supports broader climate justice scholarship that cautions against assuming that inclusion language alone leads to equitable outcomes (Islam & Winkel, 2017).

The holistic assessment enabled by the CCE-PPP framework points to a set of interconnected opportunities for strengthening CCE planning, policy, and practice across Central Asia. These opportunities require reorienting CCE toward a more coherent, equity-centered, and systemically embedded component of climate adaptation.

One key opportunity lies in enhancing the policy visibility and coherence of CCE. The study reveals that climate education is frequently subsumed within broader environmental or sustainable development agendas, which dilutes its focus and limits accountability. Developing standalone or clearly articulated CCE strategies, aligned with national climate vulnerabilities and education priorities, could provide a clearer organizing vision for action. This is particularly relevant in contexts where education sector plans do not translate climate adaptation commitments into concrete objectives or delivery mechanisms. Strengthening the alignment between climate commitments and education planning would help ensure that CCE is not just referenced in policies but systematically integrated into the strategic planning across different levels.

The framework also points to opportunities to broaden how CCE is conceptualized and delivered. A more transformative approach would involve mainstreaming climate themes across disciplines, including humanities, social sciences, and civic education, while grounding learning in local environmental and socio-economic contexts. Updating teaching materials in national and minority languages, and ensuring access for rural schools, represents a practical entry point for making CCE more relevant and meaningful to learners’ lived experiences. Teacher preparedness also emerges as an essential leverage point. Sustained investment in pre-service and in-service professional development could equip teachers with interdisciplinary climate knowledge and participatory teaching approaches, helping them to adapt to emerging risks and evolving climate contexts.

The equity and inclusion dimension of the CCE-PPP framework reveals that groups facing existing educational disadvantage, including rural communities, learners with disabilities, and linguistic minorities, are least likely to benefit from current CCE efforts. This pattern reflects what climate justice scholars describe as “double exposure,” where social marginalization and climate vulnerability reinforce one another (O’Brien & Leichenko, 2000). Transformative opportunities therefore lie in integrating equity considerations directly into CCE design through inclusive curricula, targeted infrastructure investments, multilingual resources, and participatory approaches that reflect local realities. Without such measures, CCE risks reproducing, rather than mitigating, structural inequalities.

Finally, the study highlights the importance of strengthening coordination across governance levels and promoting the leadership of youth and civil society. Enhancing inter-ministerial coordination mechanisms and inclusive consultation platforms could support more coherent policy development. At the same time, youth-led and NGO-driven initiatives, particularly visible in Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic, demonstrate innovative pedagogical practices and strong community engagement that remain underutilized within formal education systems. Creating stronger linkages between these grassroots initiatives and formal education governance through institutional recognition, stable financing, and cross-sector partnerships would help integrate bottom-up innovation into top-down planning and implementation.

The scope of the findings in this study is shaped by its focus on national policy documents and the extent to which diverse stakeholders could be reached for interviews. The analysis drew on 38 documents and 11 interview records representing 15 respondents from different organizations or governmental bodies, which enabled a system-level understanding of CCE across countries. However, the dataset places less emphasis on longer-term or field-based research into how CCE is experienced and enacted in specific local communities within these contexts. The utility of the CCE-PPP framework is also closely tied to the availability and quality of data across sectors, countries, and regions. In contexts where data remain limited or insufficiently disaggregated, its ability to assess equity dimensions or localized implementation may be constrained.

This points to an important area for future research, where framework-based analysis can be complemented by participatory and community-based approaches to capture the lived experiences of learners, educators, and communities facing climate-related challenges.

Future research could also extend the application of the CCE-PPP framework to other regional contexts to enable comparative analysis and refinement of its indicators. Strengthening collaboration among regional and national institutions, researchers, and participants will be important for generating more localized, disaggregated, and context-sensitive data, and for supporting more grounded and responsive approaches to CCE policy and practice.

Author contributions: SG: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, writing – original draft; EH-W: conceptualization, formal analysis, funding acquisition, methodology, resources, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing; BH: conceptualization, formal analysis, funding acquisition, methodology, supervision, writing – original draft, writing – review & editing; SK: investigation, project administration, resources, validation, writing – review & editing; MT: data curation, investigation, project administration, writing – review & editing. All authors agreed with the results and conclusions.

Funding: This study was supported by the UNESCO Regional Office in Almaty and CAPS Unlock as part of a regional evaluation project on climate change education.

Acknowledgments: The authors would like to thank the UNESCO Regional Office in Almaty and CAPS Unlock for their support and all interview participants for sharing their time and insights.

Ethical statement: As part of a UNESCO-commissioned evaluation project, this study received ethical approval through UNESCO’s internal review procedures. The study involved the analysis of publicly available documents and voluntary interviews with adult participants. Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation, and all interview data were anonymized and de-identified to protect participant confidentiality.

AI statement: Generative AI tools were used to assist with Russian-to-English translation and overall language improvements. The literature review, data analysis, critical synthesis, interpretation of findings, and all substantive discussions were conducted by the authors, who take full responsibility for the content of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest: No conflict of interest is declared by the authors.

Data sharing statement: Data supporting the findings and conclusions are available upon request from the corresponding author.