Gender and Development

Women's Education Month

November 2006 was women's education month in SERD. Three education loan projects were approved for Indonesia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam. All 3 projects are designed with significant gender dimensions. Each has a strong focus on providing educational access and opportunities for females. The projects target the supply and demand-side issues for girls and young women in both basic and senior secondary education.

Indonesia: Madrasah Schools to Promote Gender Equity

Diversifying partnerships in the drive to achieve universal basic education through the private sector is the essence of the new Education Law (2003) in Indonesia. An efficient and effective madrasah system is required to achieve the Government's key education policy of universal 9-year basic education, and gender equity in senior secondary education. Partnership between Ministry of National Education (MONE) and Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) is key to realizing this Government strategy.

Madrasah schools are particularly attractive to the poorest rural students, who are also the hardest to reach. Madrasah schools attract more girls than general schools. Girls constitute half of all madrasah students. The madrasah system captures those girls that would normally drop out after completing primary school. Madrasah schools provide an opportunity to enroll more girls, especially in junior secondary education. If madrasah schools were not available, some girls would not be in school at all.

In November 2006, ADB approved a loan and technical assistance grant to the Republic of Indonesia for a Madrasah Education Development Project. The project includes a gender action plan with specific actions aimed at maintaining current gender balance among teachers, providing gender sensitive training for teachers, awarding transition scholarship for girls, encouraging female participation in madrasah school committees (at least 30%), and better reporting against gender actions in project progress reports. For more information, contact Wendy Duncan, SESS.

Lao PDR: Lower Secondary Education for Girls

Lower secondary school in poor condition in Lao PDR. Photo by Anupma Jain

The Basic Education Development Program (BESDP) is the first intervention in Lao PDR aimed at lower secondary education. It is also the first program to provide much needed support to Government in policy areas that are key to moving the education sector forward towards more holistic development.

Access to basic social services is limited for women and girls. More than 85% of Lao women live and work in farming households, and perform the bulk of household work. Girls help mothers in agricultural and domestic duties such as water collection and childcare. Some factors that influence parents' decisions to send their daughters to school include distance to the school, cost of education (e.g., school fees), safety, and teaching quality. While these factors are also applicable to boys, the opportunity cost of sending girls to lower secondary schools is much more significant.

A Gender and Ethnic Group Development Plan was prepared for the project to address these barriers to lower secondary education for girls. Some specific actions include:

• Out of 1310 lower secondary student grants for poor ethnic students, at least 2/3 will be reserved for girls.Education development grants will be provided to 77 rural lower/complete secondary schools to improve school conditions and initiate activities to attract female and ethnic groups students.
• Establishment of student-parent associations in each of the 77 rural schools. At least 40% of the association members, wherever feasible, will be women. At least 1 girl and 1 boy will be student representatives.
• Ensure that the new curriculum (grades 1-12) and curriculum guides are responsive to gender and ethnic group issues and do not carry negative biases.

Lower secondary school girls in Lao PDR. Photo by Anupma Jain, 2006.

The Gender and Ethnic Groups Education Unit (GEGEU) within the Ministry of Education (MOE) will be given new responsibilities under the project including (i) representation in project management unit for BESDP, and (ii) implementation oversight of the Gender and Ethnic Groups Development Plan. To help facilitate evaluation of the targeted interventions GEGEU will conduct an impact assessment study in the third year of BESDP implementation. Findings of the study will help refine and/or modify targeted interventions. The GEGEU was established under ADB's Basic Education (Girls) Project. Recently, it prepared a draft gender and education policy, which was submitted to the Prime Minister's office for approval. For more information, contact Sukhdeep Brar, SESS.

Viet Nam: Better Quality Education; Better Quality Teachers

Improving the quality of secondary education requires extensive support for teacher education. ADB's project on Upper Secondary and Professional Teacher Development aims to improve the quality of upper secondary and professional secondary education in Viet Nam. Improved quality will produce better qualified and motivated teachers. The Project will improve access and equity, and enhance training quality, efficiency and management. It will sponsor a nationwide teacher development system to integrate pre-service and in-service training.

A Gender and Ethnic Minority Development Action Plan captures the key actions required for ensuring that women and ethnic minorities have access to in-service teacher training and teacher development courses. Targeted support will be provided to: (i) teacher training institutes in ethnic minority areas and in areas of rapid economic growth; and (ii) ethnic minority students, particularly ethnic girls.

A gender action plan is included in the project design that includes provision for at least 50% scholarships to be awarded to girls from ethnic minorities to train as teachers. Monitoring mechanisms are included in the loan design and the gender action plan indicators are included in the design and monitoring framework to ensure gender targets are monitored. For more information, contact Sukhdeep Brar, SESS.