Annex 2:

Policy Framework and Action Points WITH RESPECT TO EDUCATION

There follow a number of action points which governments may wish to adapt to suit their national circumstances and use in the formulation of policies, plans, programmes and projects.

School management, teachers and school staff

• organise gender training/planning workshops for teaching staff, in co-operation with school management, parents associations and teachers unions, in order to provide school staff with an understanding of the construction of gender;
• develop binding guidelines and disseminate them to all educational and training institutions;
• publish a newsletter containing information and data on gender and education;
• establish, for all staff, selection and promotion criteria that include specific expectations in relation to the achievement of gender equity;
• develop materials to assist teachers with assessment and evaluation procedures, including examples of assessment tools that consider the different experiences, interests and aptitudes of girls;
• encourage teachers to change their practice in a particular way, through, for example, promotion or allocation of resources; and
• ask schools to submit a plan of action to achieve gender equality and equity, and an annual report on progress made in this respect;
• involve the community in school management.

School organisation and practice

• make girls’ schooling more affordable by reducing fees and offering targeted scholarships; offering targeted scholarships;

• change policies to permit married and pregnant adolescents to attend school;

• ensure that the school dress code enables girls to engage in sport and active play;
• establish staffing procedures to ensure that women are represented in leadership positions;
• ensure that the timetable provides girls with real flexibility in their subject choice; and

provide for the physical needs of each girl in relation to privacy, hygiene and clothing. Experience across 30 African countries, for example, indicates that a majority of young women do not attend school when they are menstruating if there are no private latrine facilities to enable them to care for personal hygiene;

§ set up girls-only secondary schools in countries where parents are apprehensive about sending girls;

§ bring schools close to the community; distance matters for all children, but especially for girls.

Curriculum

• ensure that gender considerations are included in all educational and training curricula, thus providing a curriculum which in content, language and methodology meets the educational needs and entitlements of girls and which recognises the contributions of women to society and values female knowledge and experience;
• include in the curriculum a range of teaching methods which best promote the active participation of girls in learning;
• provide access for girls to all areas of the curriculum, and establish the skills and confidence necessary to utilise this access;
• develop a curriculum for girls that is strong in math and sciences and that projects gender equality;
• in partnership with the school community, provide information on conception, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, child rearing, parenting and relationships;
• develop a curriculum which critically examines the gender distribution of work in families, households and paid work, and the relative values attributed to these different kinds of work by society; and
• provide advice on subject choices to ensure that girls do not limit their training and employment opportunities by the patterns of their study.

Educational materials

• ensure that textbooks and tests are gender-sensitive as regards the language, images and examples used therein.

Career counselling and guidance

• sensitise people engaged in career counselling on gender issues, thus ensuring that they also direct women to sex-atypical occupations;
• disseminate information to students and parents about career counselling and vocational guidance;
• devise a career guidance programme to encourage bright girls to further their education in areas where they are traditionally under-represented, such as technical and scientific areas; and
• guide boys and men also into ‘female’ occupations, which could eliminate gender segregation in jobs.

Girls’ perceptions and attitudes

• stimulate girls to plan on working careers by changing their expected time allocations to both the labour force and home and their own perceptions of their roles and capabilities;
• establish mechanisms for identifying, supporting and monitoring girls at risk; and
• provide programmes for school teachers, counsellors and parents in order to enable them to understand those issues which place girls at the risk of not completing their education, issues such as income support, housing and childcare.

Parents’ attitudes and involvement

• set up parent-teacher organisations to increase the awareness among parents of the benefits of educating and training girls and to involve parents more with schooling in general; and
• engage parents and the community in the development of programmes and materials that enhance and develop awareness of the impacts of gender construction.

Patriarchal attitudes.

• change patriarchal attitudes that define girls’ destiny in terms of marriage and family, so that parents see little value in educating girls, and negative attitudes to women’s intellectual capabilities;
• change attitudes with respect to the division of labour, a reason to keep girls at home or pull them out of school in times of economic stress. Even if they do go to school, girls have to make up their quota of work before and after school, and are often too exhausted to learn;
• devise strategies to project a more positive image of women’s working abilities and promote their entry into non-traditional occupations. Non-governmental organisations can play an important role in reorienting society’s and men’s attitudes to acceptance of new employment roles for women.

Employers’ attitudes

• induce employers to change their attitudes and practices as regards gender and the perceived roles of women. This could be done by requiring that contractors tendering for government contracts do not discriminate on the basis of gender and take affirmative action to ensure non-discriminatory treatment in recruitment, training and upgrading of minorities, or by threatening to enforce action by government agencies on the basis of anti-discrimination legislation.

Sex education

• give advice to young girls and boys on avoiding unwanted pregnancies and on reproductive health, including protection against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Sex-based harassment

• develop programmes that teach girls and boys effective communication and conflict resolution skills;
• develop policies at school level to demonstrate that sex-based harassment is unacceptable behaviour and ensure that it is punished; and
• provide programmes and materials that inform school and wider communities about the underlying causes of sex-based harassment and its impact on the education of girls.

Vocational training

• prohibit discrimination in vocational education and apprenticeship programmes;
• take affirmative action to recruit more women to vocational education and apprenticeships;
• ensure that girls are familiarised with vocational education and apprenticeships, set up orientation programmes and provide connections with potential employers; and
• require government contractors to provide on-the-job training opportunities for women or to participate in training programmes that include women and minorities.

Affirmative action

• put in place a programme to give preference to women in terms of education and training and career advancement until such time as women are available in sufficient numbers and at sufficiently high levels to ensure fair competition;
• Train more female teachers for the secondary level; they can serve as role models and convince parents that schools are safe places for girls.

Adapted from: Commonwealth Secretariat / UN Millennium Project 2005.