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Gender Checklist: Education : Key questions and action points in the project cycle
Gender issues in basic and primary education
Are the training locations accessible to both women and men? How can school facilities be improved to make education more accessible to girls/women?
Key Questions
- Are there education and training opportunities for girls, particularly among the poor?
- What are the constraints on girls’ access to school in various social groups?
- What are the underlying causes of the unequal participation rate between girls and boys?
- What facilities (separate dormitories, toilet facilities, special financial incentives to ensure female retention rates, etc.) are needed to improve girls’ access to schools?
- How can the dropout rates of girls/boys be reduced?
- Are female teachers available?
- What is the quality of teaching/training?
- Are women involved in school management?
- Is female participation affected by intersectoral factors? Are counseling and health service components needed to offset those factors?
- Will opportunities for training or scholarship in the project be equally accessible to girls/women and boys/men?
Key Strategies
- Choose a location that is appropriate for both girls and boys. Does the school have sufficient facilities (e.g., secure girls’/women’s dormitory ac-commodation, study facilities for girls/women, separate and private bathrooms) to allow girls to enroll?
- If the enrollment of girls is low, consider integrating in the project design incentives (e.g., stipends, free books and school uniforms) to increase enrollment.
- Consider how cultural norms that keep women separate should be dealt with in the pro-ject, by ensuring the avail-ability of female teachers, sensitizing the local community to the importance of girls’ education, or other means.
- Allocate funds specifically for the development of strategies for increasing poor girls’ women’s participation.
- Include in the project specific measures to address the iden-tified constraints on female participation. (Examples are given in Box 1.)
- Ensure that the project inc-ludes the qualitative aspects of teaching practices and the school environment.
- Ensure that the curriculum is adequate for the local com-munity, given its social needs and the productive sectors in the area.
- Consider reviewing and changing images that reinforce gender stereotypes in cur-ricula, textbooks, and other educational media. For exam-ple, textbooks can be revised so that images and stories in them refer to both women and men in sciences, math, and agriculture, as well as health and education.
- Design specific mechanisms to facilitate women’s involve-ment in school management, etc. (Examples are given in Box 4.)
- Consider involving NGOs in project implementation.
- Allocate funds, if required, for monitoring and gender impact analysis, to ensure that girls/women are benefiting from the education project.
Tips
- Lower the educational attainment requirements for female candidates to increase the number of female teachers
- Make the curriculum responsive to the social needs of the community and its productive sectors
- Expand income-generating opportunities for women by providing skill-based training
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