GENDER IN THE EFA FRAMEWORK

1. GENDER IN THE EFA FRAMEWORK Presentation by Adelaide Sosseh at the Workshop on Inclusive Education for Select Committee of the National Assembly on Education & Training

2. WHAT IS GENDER? • The socially ascribed roles that society has given to males and females.

3. WHAT IS THE EFA FRAMEWORK? 1 • The EFA Initiative grew out of Jomtien 1990 • Given more specificity in Dakar 2000 • Key elements to be accomplished by 2015 are: • Expand ECCD • Provide Free and compulsory education for all • Promote learning & lifelong skills for young people & adults • Increase adult illiteracy by 50% • Achieve gender parity by 2005 & gender equality by 2015 • Improve the quality of education

4. WHAT IS EFA FRAMEWORK? 2 Achievement of these goals were premised on the following commitments: • Strong national and international political commitment for EFA, development of national plans & significant investment in basic education. • EFA policies to be linked to other sectors to eliminate poverty • CSO participation at all levels

5. WHAT IS EFA FRAMEWORK? 3 • Development of responsive, participatory and accountable systems of educational governance and management; • Meeting the needs of education systems affected by conflict, natural calamities and instability and conduct educational programmes that promote mutual understanding, peace and tolerance, & that help to prevent violence & conflict; • Implement integrated strategies for gender equality in education • Implement education programmes and actions to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic;

6. WHAT IS EFA FRAMEWORK 4 • Create safe, healthy, inclusive and equitably resourced educational environments conducive to excellence in learning, with clearly defined levels of achievement for all; • Enhance the status, morale and professionalism of teachers; • Harness new ICTs to help achieve EFA goals; • Systematically monitor progress towards EFA goals and strategies at the national, regional and international levels; and • Build on existing mechanisms to accelerate progress towards EFA EFA SITUATED AT THE HEART OF NATION STATES

7. WHY GENDER? • Education is a basic human right • Girls and women’s education is a human right, provides economic and social benefits and is an international objective (EFA goal and MDG 3) • Most countries including The Gambia have lived up to this objective but still gaps. • Worldwide 72 million children out of school majority (41 million) of whom are girls. In The Gambia gender parity attained at the LBS but gaps in the UBS and SS levels.

8. WHY GENDER? • The term EFA is all inclusive and non discriminatory. • Exclusion of women and girls because of their gender is discriminatory. • Exclusion leads to marginalisation, non-participation, low status, low self esteem, powerlessness and helplessness. • Regardless of what creates the exclusion-gender, ethnic minority, linguistic group, caste, poverty, disability -the education consequences of the excluded are real.

9. WHY GENDER? • Discrimination by the wider population effectively prevents the socially excluded from participating in education. Thus girls are • Denied access to school • Withdrawn from school early compared to boys. • Such behaviour can be due to social (early marriage) cultural or economic reasons (costs of schooling, household chores and so on)

10. WHY GENDER ? • Education is an economic investment in human capital-Profitability of the private returns are undisputable, universal & global • Further schooling has a large pay off-direct implications for the individual, national aggregate outcomes & distribution of outcomes across society. • Females remain an untapped resource for the labour market, health & children’s education, for environmental protection, for management of natural resources, conflict prevention & peace building, governance & so on.

11. SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND EDUCATION • When girls encounter problems of access their performance in school can suffer. • Such constraints occur when they are kept: • Home from school. • Receive fewer hours of instruction. • When teachers discriminate against them. • When negative gender stereotypes and expectations are activated in the classroom and schools and • When girls motivation is lowered. • When they suffer from GBV

12. INNOVATIVE WAYS OF REACHING & TEACHING EXCLUDED GIRLS 1 • Since Dakar, much has been done to reach poor children and excluded groups from education. A two pronged approach is used: • Expanding school opportunities and • Boosting demand for education.

13. INNOVATIVE WAYS OF REACHING & TEACHING EXCLUDED GIRLS 2 Expanding school opportunities involves: • Building schools nearer homes of learners • Provision of ECD as transition from this level facilitates access to Primary level • Mentoring programmes for girls • Distance learning programmes (radio, TV & ICT)

14. INNOVATIVE WAYS FOR REACHING & TEACHING EXCLUDED GIRLS 3 Boosting demand for education. • Improvements in the quality and relevance of the curriculum • Child friendly schools (separate toilet facilities for boys and girls). Water supplies. Good school infrastructure Including access for children with disabilities. Adequate number of teachers (male and female) who interact effectively with learners. Adequate number of gender and culturally sensitive TLMs. Violence free-corporal punishment & sexual harrassment.

15. INNOVATIVE WAYS FOR REACHING & TEACHING EXCLUDED GIRLS 4 • Creating incentives for households to send their daughters to school • Scholarship schemes & stipends-Girls Education Trust Fund, PEGEP, AGSP & others. • Conditional Cash Transfers (Bangladesh, Mexico & Brazil & Yemen); Pilots in Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria & Sierra Leone (See Slides 16 & 17) • School feeding programmes Low income countries unable to finance such programmes. External support required for these investments & for M & E.

16. CONDITIONAL CASH TRANSFERS AS A TOOL FOR GENDER EQUALITY • Cash transfers have become a powerful mechanism for reduction of poverty & vulnerability in developing countries. • Benefits for children include: Improvements in nutrition; school attendance; use of health services; birth registration & in reduced use of child labour. • At the level of the household helps to improve living conditions & economic productivity. • Transform women’s lives by providing extra resources that they control directly.

17. CONDITIONAL CASE TRANSFERCASE STUDY The “Bourse Mamans” Cash Transfer programme in the Mopti and Kayes Regions of Mali provides women in Mali with a cash transfer of about US$10 a month on condition that children attend school at least 80% of the year. It promotes gender equity by providing the grant to mothers and benefitting girls more than boys. The programme is contributing to positive schooling outcomes for children, leading households to adopt formal schooling.

18. BRINGING GIRLS & WOMEN INTO SCHOOLS & LEARNING SPACES 5 • Schools a microcosm of wider society- Reflect gendered division of roles & responsibilities. Two approaches are utilised: • The WID approach – equal access and equal opportunities and • The GAD approach- The UNGEI took the lead & gender reviews indicate that girls educprogrammes also benefit boys. However there is the contrary view that girls educmarginalises boys (The Gambian experience)

19. BRINGING GIRLS & WOMEN INTO SCHOOLS & LEARNING SPACES 6 • GAD approach-Goes beyond access to examine the issue of quality. • Vision for girls education is not limited to the formal school system (Note The Gambia as a best practice in expanding the vision of Basic Education to include ECCD, Grades 1-9 of the formal school system & non-formal education) • 1st & 2nd life chances for girls • Life skills education programmes

20. BRINGING GIRLS & WOMEN INTO SCHOOLS & LEARNING SPACES 7 • Quality cannot be measured in traditional terms of examination results only • Some of the factors are school based –stereotypes in both official & hidden curriculum • Gender make up of teaching & non teaching staff-presence of female teachers to serve as reference points & role models. • Unsafe & unsecure schools lead to breakdown in trust with far reaching consequences

21. BRINGING GIRLS & WOMEN INTO SCHOOLS & LEARNING SPACES 8 • Others in the wider society-home, community, social & cultural environment-such environments should be safe, healthy, gender responsive & conducive to learning esp. for children with disabilities, Children Living with HIV (CLHIV), poor & ethnic minorities.

22. TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION THROUGH RIGHTS TO EDUCATION &GENDER EQUALITY • Global compacts-UDHR, CRC, BPfA, EFA & MDGs • Gender equality in education needs to be understood from 3 perspectives: • Right to Education-access & participation • Rights within education-gender sensitive education (environments, processes, outcomes) • Rights through education-relevant educ outcomes that connect educ with the wider process of gender justice in soc.

23. TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION THROUGH RIGHTS TO EDUCATION &GENDER EQUALITY • Right to education: CFS approach ensures inclusion of both boys & girls & addresses the issues of exclusion such as discrimination, stereotypes, relevant curriculum, GBV, sexual harrassment, community disengagement (mothers clubs) & school governace (SMCs & PTAs). • Rights within education: Hearing children’s voices • Rights thru’ education: Focuses on evidence of inequalities in the family, employment, political field & so on

24. CHALLENGES TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION • Poverty studies show that 80% of children in the richest quintile complete schooling as compared to 20% from the poorest quintile • Hard to reach children including those in purdah, orphans & children with disabilities • Low economic returns to basic education may be evidence of discrimination such that women need to achieve more schooling to earn sufficient wages.

25. CHALLENGES TO INCLUSIVE EDUCATION • Costly-teachers, TLMs, Infrastructure, innovations • Gender inequalities in the school curriculum-students/parental perceptions & beliefs (STEM) • Resistance to curriculum reforms-language policies, 2nd chance education, rights based approaches.

26. THE WAY FORWARD • TIME TO ACT IS NOW-NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND • Access-new schools, additional classrooms, rehabilitation (esp. for needs of the disabled), mobile schools, mobile teachers • More female teachers & more Special Needs teachers • More Gender and Culturally sensitive TLMs • CFS • ICTs for Education • Financial Incentives

27. THE WAY FORWARD • Additional resourcing for education • Involvement of all stakeholders • SWAps • Enforcement of legislation • Monitoring & Evaluation

28. ROLE OF PARLIAMENTARIANS IN ENSURING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IT IS IN YOUR HANDS. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO BRING ABOUT SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION Through: • Legislation • Approval of Gender Responsive & Pro-Poor Budgets • Your over sight functions • Advocacy • Awareness creation & sensitisation of your constituencies

29. ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN ENSURING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION • Timely and accurate reporting on innovations, best practices, policies & so on. • Telling “HERSTORY” (it is newsworthy) • IEC for behaviour change (BCC) • Advocate for implementation of policies

30. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND ATTENTION