Promoting gender equality in/through schools – examples to learn from

Education and Gender Equality- Interconnections

There is a lot in common between education and gender equality- both are instrumental to the development of a society as also intrinsic to living in a society and interacting with fellow beings. Yet, as is the case in many contexts, one functions to the detriment of the other. Education, as is imparted in many institutions and systems, works not just to impede gender equality, but also actively promote gender inequality. Whether comments like- ‘She is quite good at Maths for a girl!’, ‘He is so uninterested in sports- unlike regular boys’, or reinforcement of gender norms such as ‘girls don’t laugh so hard’ or ‘boys don’t cry’, or in some cases segregating seating arrangements in classrooms according to students’ gender- the ways in which gender inequality is perpetuated in schools are many.

In schools, both girls and boys are under continuous surveillance by their teachers and school staff, but girls are particularly grilled and their behavior and appearance are frequently judged – girls should not be loud, should have fine manners, should have clipped fingernails and so on. Consequently, girls tend to contribute less to discussions and ask fewer questions in order to lessen the risk of attracting attention. Furthermore, this negatively affects their zest for learning. As a result of this attitude towards girls at schools, they tend to behave and act more in accordance with the prevailing gender norms and roles and grow up to internalise them.

To stop the perpetuation of gender inequality through schools as well as to address its existence in the society at large, initiatives to promote gender equality in and through schools are imperative. Schools have enormous potential to effect change in gender relations, views and practices vis-a-vis gender, and create a gender-sensitive and gender-equal generation of men and women.

Harnessing the potential of education as a change agent- Examples

The first part of our two-part blog looks at initiatives in education systems that have begun to harness this potential. We shall briefly discuss each example by looking at the nature of the initiative, successes achieved, and learnings to be drawn. We shall then think about the South Asian context and whether such initiatives are needed there.

1. Consent classes – Kenya

In classes organised in Nairobi by an organisation called No Means No Worldwide since 2009, girls are taught to say “No” and are given training in self-defense. With an aim to bring about a generational change, young boys are trained to change their perspectives on gender and are given lessons on ‘positive masculinity’. For instance, they are taught to intervene when they find a girl in trouble.

There has been reported success of this initiative in the form of reduction of incidences of sexual harassment by 50%. Moreover, participants challenged socially embedded stereotypes and myths about gender and sexual assault. Most boys, who had come to believe socially embedded myths that it was okay to rape women who were taken on expensive dates, wore revealing clothes or were out alone at night, were reported to have changed their minds after attending these classes. They were also able to identify sexually inappropriate behaviour rather quickly and intervened in such incidents. To sustain these positive changes, trainings were followed-up with subsequent sessions and refresher trainings.

Primary learnings– Context-based curriculum design; identifying specific needs of boys and girls and targeting the programme to ensure effectiveness among both sets of participants.

2. Gender-aware curricula – Turkey

Turkey’s  “2008-2013 National Action Plan for Gender Equality” and the “Form of Gender Equality Attitude of Higher Education Council” state that the issue of gender inequality must be included in the curriculum of various undergraduate and graduate programs of the faculties of Education – to make the curriculum gender sensitive. Based on the orders given by the National Action Plan and Higher Education Council, the curriculum was then revised and is now based on interactive teaching techniques and pedagogies which are gender sensitive.

Another project, funded by the European Union and the Government of Turkey and known as “Promoting Gender Equality in Education”, aims at promoting gender equality throughout the schools of Turkey by aiding the ministry of education and schools to assess the schools’ capacity to create a safe environment and curriculum for learning devoid of gender biases. This project entails multiple efforts to make schools gender-neutral – developing tools to make the educational system sensitive to gender inequality, reviewing educational policies, curricula and textbooks and drawing recommendations, conducting sessions on gender equality to bring awareness in the society. Around 98% of the female educators who were a part of this project have stated that their association with this project have made them aware of the suitable attitude that a teacher should adopt in order to make the school environment gender sensitive.

Primary learnings– Gender-sensitive pedagogies, eliminating gender bias from education systems, making school gender neutral, teachers as change-agents

3. Period boxes – India

In response to a question by two 13-year-old girls’ on why there had been no discussion on periods in school, their teacher convened an interaction in class on menstruation. There were many questions asked (especially by the boys), experiences shared, and the girls showed sanitary napkins to their male classmates. The discussion, led by girls, culminated into a collective decision of placing a ‘period box’ in the classroom. This box is stocked with sanitary napkins, tissues, and candies. When the girls took turns to take responsibility the box, parents of boys protested against the exclusion of boys from sharing the responsibility. The practice was also adopted by other classes of the school.

Although the initiative exists in one or perhaps few schools in the country, it is a practice worth replicating. Acknowledging the importance of biological processes such as menstruation and having conversations around them is a step towards creating spaces where men and women can coexist with each other while being sensitive to each others’ bodies and experiences.

Primary learnings– Opening up classrooms to conversations about menstruation and related issues; mutual sharing of gendered experiences among boys and girls; taking measures to enable a conducive environment for girls and boys alike.

4. Policies forbidding gender discrimination in textbooks – Thailand

In response to findings worldwide regarding the importance of educational units being influential in shaping the behaviors of students, various countries have taken measures. On a policy level, Thailand is among those few countries which have instituted practices forbidding discrimination based on gender in textbooks and curriculum – particular directives are provided to eliminate the gender stereotypes and textbooks are taken under revisions all over the country. The aim is to go beyond equal access to schools, towards achieving equality within schools.

Primary learnings– Acknowledging and addressing gender discrimination in textbooks, policy directives to eliminate gender inequality in curricula

The South Asian Case

We shall now turn to the South Asia and explore the need to bring in such practices in schools and education systems in the region.

South Asian countries have a deep-rooted structure of gender inequality to combat- patriarchy is embedded in the lived experiences of people. Be it discriminatory practices that begin even before a child’s birth, or, differential access to educational and economic opportunities, or, unequal marriages or, non-consensual pregnancies, or, gender biases at the workplace, or, gender-based violence in public and private spheres- gender inequality assumes a status of normalcy in most parts of the South Asian region. Part of this inequality is statistically represented in terms of gender gap in indicators of health, literacy, economic participation. Much of the inequality is not. For example, even the female population that has been able to get access to education does not escape gender-based discrimination or violence. To put it differently, even the male population that gets educated does not acquire gender awareness or practice gender equality. This points to a component that is lacking within the education practice of the region- gender equality. Gender-equal education is needed at the level of regional cooperation initiatives, national policies, in-school programmes, and classroom engagements

This piece was co-authored with Mehrin Shah and was first published on the LSE Department of International Development Blog on 12th February 2019. It is the first of a two-part blog on promoting gender equality in/through schools. 

(https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/internationaldevelopment/2019/02/12/promoting-gender-equality-in-through-schools-examples-to-learn-from/)

Combating the learning crisis in South Asia

Amongst a range of development challenges that South Asian countries face is that of poor education – both in terms of literacy rates and quality of education imparted to those counted as ‘literate’.  While governments are attempting to increase literacy levels in their respective countries through policy interventions for improved infrastructure and greater access to schools, they seem to have progressed much less in addressing the learning crisis that has enveloped most of the South Asia today.

The present scenario of education in South Asia  

In May 2018, UNICEF noted that only about half of primary-aged children currently receive education with minimum learning standards. Looking into the micro picture further reveals the dismal state of education in the region. According to the World Development Report 2018, India topped the list of countries where a grade two student could not perform two-digit subtraction and was ranked second in the list of countries where a grade two student could not read a single word of a short text. As per a World Bank Policy Research Working Paper published in 2006, less than 20% of children in Pakistan are capable of comprehending a simple paragraph, with most of them not being able to write a simple sentence with a word like “school” in the national language of the country.

While these statistics give an initial peek into the state of learning in these countries, a closer look at the education priorities of South Asian governments reveal that ‘learning outcomes’ have a rather peripheral status. The focus of most governments is on access, enrolment, and completion rates. There is a lack of adequate measurement of learning outcomes. For example, in Bangladesh only 1 in 12 performance indicators set by the government targets learning. The evaluation of the Education For All initiative in Nepal revealed an absence of mechanisms to monitor classroom environments and progress in learning levels. Other countries in the region including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Bhutan have reported low levels of learning despite relative increase in literacy rates. Maldives, despite an impressive literacy rate of 98%, faces challenges in terms of quality. According to a UNICEF report, untrained teachers, regional inequality in teaching standards, emphasis on rote-learning, and gender-bias in curricula are some of the problems that this almost universally literate country faces.

Contributing factors to the learning crisis

In this section, we attempt to flag some of the factors that have led to this learning crisis in the region. First, learning is not given prominence in policies and strategies to improve education. Rising the share of education budgets in countries like Pakistan and Nepal accompanied by a persistent lack of learning quality bears testimony to the neglect of the ‘learning’ aspect of education. In India, despite regular alarms raised by the Annual Status of Education Reports regarding low learning levels, the country has not seen any significant success in changing the status quo.

Second, the role of teachers in the learning process is not paid enough attention. Teachers are supposed to not just be subject experts but also ensure that students from various socio-economic backgrounds are integrated into the classroom space. In the South Asian context where teacher absenteeism, inadequate teacher training, and incidents of discrimination by teachers are prevalent, teachers form a significant part of the problem.

Third, in a region like South Asia that faces deprivation, education has to be envisaged as a tool to alleviate poverty. This can only be done if what students learn in schools is aligned with professional skills and economic opportunities. Presently, there exists a mismatch between school curricula and the demands of the economies.

Fourth, learning deficits are greater for learners from economically disadvantaged families compared to those from well-off families. The family background of a child which includes socio-economic status, home environment and the educational status of the parents remains a huge determinant of learning outcomes. Learning gaps between the poor and rich students increase as they move to higher classes.

Fifth, there is neglect of careful curriculum design to suit the needs of the population being educated. There seems to be a trend of importing course content predominantly from Western education systems and placing it in the midst of a very different target audience. This lack of context-specific curriculum makes learning not just less relatable and thus harder to grasp for students, but also does little to equip them to think of locally relevant solutions to the everyday problems they grapple with.

The learning crisis has a causal relation with the economic wellbeing of a population and development prospects in general. If more generations of learners continue to graduate out of schools without basic skills like reading, writing, comprehension, and analytical thinking, it is naive to expect them to be active participants in the economic growth of the region. The learning crisis also negatively impacts the political development and civic engagement of a nation. People who are more educated tend to participate more in civic activities compared to those who are less educated.

Potential solutions for improving education

Be it for economic, political, and social gains or for the intrinsic importance of learning in education, this major issue that South Asian countries face needs to be dealt with. For this, the following solutions may be considered.

1. Measurement of learning: The first step towards addressing the learning crisis is making it visible through an effective and efficient measurement system. Lack of a proper assessment of learning gives authorities the leverage to ignore the outcomes of education. Proper evaluation of learning outcomes shall also lead to awareness of the poor quality of education among parents and who may consequently demand the government to improve it.
2. Early childhood development programmes: Acquisition of foundational skills during early childhood is essential for the learning process throughout a child’s life. Factors which hinder early childhood development include malnutrition, low parental support, distressed environment and material deprivation. Immediate action is required, targeting these socio-economic factors that give birth to these deprivations in the first place.
3. Context-specific curriculum: Tuning the curriculum in consonance with the socio-economic environment of the learner will enable greater efficiency in learning outcomes. Students will be able to comprehend easily and  apply what they learn to the context they are situated in. This would help develop cognitive and analytical skills and thus amplify learning outcomes.
4. Continuous teacher education: There needs to be concerted attempt to make teachers effective in order to make the learning process successful. Even where there exist multiple training programmes for teachers over the course of their career, there is seldom continuity in training modules. The potential power of teacher training programmes to translate into enhanced pedagogies and thus better learning can be harnessed by comprehensive and continuous teacher education.
5. Learner-centric education policies: If education is seen as a vehicle of social and economic transformation, as is the case in many government publications across the region, students have to be made capable drivers of development. They have to be made the epicentre of education policies. What they learn, how they learn, and from whom they learn must be well thought through, for this will define the state of education in the region.

Conclusion

Besides efforts by individual states, the learning crisis has scope to be dealt with collectively. Given various socio-economic similarities, countries in South Asia can create some common curricular and pedagogic framework in line with the needs of students in the region. This will help make learning locally relevant while also making learners more aware. Such an engagement within the region shall help produce knowledge sharing platforms that shall enhance learning outcomes.

It is imperative that this learning crisis be arrested. This undoubtedly would require political will, apart from efforts by educators, civil society organisations working in education, and citizens. Placing learning at the centre of education and students at the centre of learning would be a vital prerequisite if we are to combat this learning crisis.

This piece was co-authored with Mehrin Shah and was first published on the LSE South Asia Centre Blog on 7th September 2018.

(https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2018/09/07/combating-the-learning-crisis-in-south-asia/)

#MeToo: A gender curriculum

The #MeToo moment calls for a rethink of our education system

Over the past few weeks, many women have spoken about their experiences of sexual harassment. Some have named the accused. Many of these accounts have been of incidents at the workplace and by co-workers, and expose the prevalence of deep-seated sexism across professions. There have been various responses by the accused to these testimonies: unconditional apologies, resignations, stepping away from duties until further investigation — but also denial, intimidation and even further harassment. Some of these were immediate responses to mounting public pressure and questions; whether they reflected repentance or realisation on the part of the accused is debatable. Some other responses, such as intimidation through defamation cases, show the entitlement that many men in power enjoy. Both sexual harassment and the kinds of responses from the accused lay bare a critical failure of our education system. It will not be sufficient to say that it is society that allows, or even conditions, men to behave the way they do. Education, an important part of the socialisation process, is also to blame.

What our education lacks

The education that we are imparted needs to be held accountable at this juncture because of its failure on fundamental grounds. The purpose of education is not to only ensure that people secure employment or rise to coveted positions of power alone, it is also to ensure that they learn and practice equality and mutual respect. Many of the accused are qualified, educated men. Their actions compel us to ask whether those years spent in school, college and university have been unsuccessful in instilling basic values. It seems as though rising to top positions and enjoying power have emboldened men to behave in unacceptable ways, and the education system has done nothing to prevent this.

It is not uncommon to hear of incidents of sexual harassment being justified as “casual flirting” or being attributed to the offender’s “glad eye”. Using these terms to explain away or even justify these acts reflects the depth and expanse of the problem. I am reminded of an encounter that a friend’s mother had with a senior bureaucrat (now retired) a few years ago. During a meeting regarding a project on which her organisation and his department were collaborating, he told her that she was “smart and beautiful”. He then recited couplets in Hindi and Urdu. Such blatant display of inappropriate behaviour, which makes women uncomfortable, shows that men in power enjoy the impunity that accompanies attitudes and acts entrenched in patriarchy.

Today, many of us are not surprised at the volume of complaints of sexual harassment. This is because it has been normalised. Sexism is not casual, it is systemic. That our education system is failing to teach boys and men to recognise, challenge and refrain from sexist and even unlawful behaviour must be acknowledged and tackled.

The way forward

This is not to say that sexual misconduct or gender inequality is a by-product of a lack in education. The spotlight is not to be put on the educated alone, but on the system too. Among other things, education has the basic duty of ensuring that we become socially aware and sensitive beings who know how to interact and engage with people of different genders, castes, classes and communities. We must teach students that consent is an essential component of any interaction and that decisions, even of refusal, must be respected.

While there is considerable discussion on the need to change mindsets, efforts to actually bring about such long-term structural changes are rare. Gender equality must not be limited to newsroom debates, stand-up themes or films, although these are necessary. What the #MeToo movement demands is a continuous and systematic process of learning that leads to equality.

There must be efforts to incorporate a gender curriculum in all school and college classrooms, establish anti-sexual harassment cells, organise regular awareness programmes on consent across the country, and formulate measures to address incidents of sexual harassment. The police should initiate community engagement drives so that students know how to report sexual harassment. Campaigns like Operation Nirbheek, initiated to improve safety and security of girls in schools, have proven to be successful to a large extent. Interventions in educational institutions will be a much-needed start to strengthen voices against sexual harassment and make homes and workplaces safe. It is imperative that we begin early if we are to secure a closure to our #MeToo experiences.

This article was first published in The Hindu on 20th November 2018.
(https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-gender-curriculum/article25540532.ece)

Feminism in the classroom

With the judgments on triple talaq and right to privacy and the verdict in the Gurmeet Ram Rahim case, the past few days have reinvigorated the conversation on women’s safety and gender equality. These cases have shone the light on some of the social structures and practices that work to threaten constitutionally enshrined principles of equality and justice.

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In the midst of numerous such cases of discrimination and oppression on the basis of gender and the discourses that ensue, the question that we as a society need to ask ourselves is: Why and how do so many people think of one gender as inferior to another? The practice of one gender dominating over the other and, of one’s gender dominating one’s entire self, needs to be looked into. We are not born patriarchal; we are socialised into becoming so.

The process that imbues patriarchy into our minds and subsequently in our attitudes and behaviour begins early in life. It starts before we can even make sense of our existence. It starts when we are assigned blue and pink before we learn to recognise colours. It starts when we are barely able to speak and boys are asked not to “cry like girls”. It starts when little girls are handed kitchen sets and boys are mocked if they show interest in pots and pans. It starts when some enter school wearing skirts and some shorts and both are taught to act differently from each other. It goes on when girls and boys are made to take up subjects based not on their interest or aptitude, but their gender. Perhaps the deepening of such a gendering of subjects has led to one of India’s premier universities, the University of Delhi, having Psychology Honours offered in most women’s colleges while boys wanting to study the subject are left with little choice. This is why we need feminism in our schools. Places where we learn the basics of grammar and science should also be places where we learn the basics of co-existence. We need children to know that equality of all genders should be a reality. We repose our faith for a better tomorrow in the young. More importantly, they deserve to live their lives as naturally as they want to, and not by norms made to hierarchise their existence.

Schools are the first places where children are exposed to and interact with people with various identities. At these abodes of learning, enforcing gendered identities and roles is detrimental to not just children but also to society as a whole. Conveying to girls that their bodies serve as “distractions” tends to alienate their physicality from their being. They begin to question, undermine, and negate their own selves. Schools, thus, become agents of violating individuals’ sense of dignity rather than upholding it. The absence of such scornful comments for their male counterparts drives home the essence of patriarchy. On the other hand, it makes boys aware that they are in a privileged position, for their bodies are not meant for scrutiny or reprimand. The moment when children enter primary classes should be when a conversation on gender must start. Acknowledging this identity is the first step to doing away with false assumptions and generalisations based on it.

Moreover, the separation of girls and boys as two distinct groups as soon as they move out of the classroom (in some cases even in classroom sitting arrangements) needs to be reconsidered. Whether in the science lab or on the sports field, choices, opportunities, and affiliations cannot be pre-determined by gender. Students of all genders working or playing together as a team shouldn’t be an unusual spectacle. It must be seen as natural because it is natural for human beings of different identities to cooperate and coexist. I recollect being called to the school’s seminar room in Class V, along with all girls, and being spoken to about menstruation. On returning to the classroom and being asked by the boys about why we had been called, we found ourselves being secretive about the meeting. It was not because all of us instinctively thought of menstruation as something to be hidden; it was perhaps the result of the segregation that took place before a conversation on a normal bodily process. To keep boys out of the room that day probably led to keeping a lot of them away from understanding a gender other than their own.

The existence of stereotypes makes it very difficult for innovation and reason to find space. Feminism could be a powerful tool that lets children shed stereotypes that they may hold and question those of others. A world free of prejudice and generalisation would be amenable to progress in the truest sense.

The need of the hour is to introduce feminism in schools, both in terms of curriculum and practice. Sessions on principles of mutual respect and equality must be made a regular affair in schools. Inculcating gender equality in children could go a long way towards ridding society of regressive mindsets, attitudes, and behaviours. Needless to say, this shall prepare the ground for children to not just be better students but also better citizens and eventually better human beings. That is the least we can do to be able to call ourselves citizens of a “free and equal” nation.

This article was first published in The Indian Express on 4th September 2017. (https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/feminism-in-the-classroom-feminism-in-india-gender-equality-gender-balance-equal-opportunity-women-in-india-4827131/)