A Training Report on Gender in Education

REPORT ON THE GENDER IN EDUCATION: GENDER AND LEADERSHIP

Bashir Ahmed

Introduction

Gender is considered as socially constructed phenomena which shape the roles, identities and positions for male and female in the society. Different factors such as family, friends, media and schools are responsible for the perpetuating gender norms in the society. Gender education starts with building gender awareness. This means recognizing the negative impacts of gender stereotypes and addressing the inequalities that arise from gender discriminations.By reducing gender stereotypes, gender education assists children in building a sincere civic equality where women and men live with mutual respect.No one is valued less or more just because one is a girl or a boy.The outcome of gender education for girls is greater self-confidence, assertiveness, independence and engagement in the public sphere.The outcome for boys is overcoming fear of failure, learning to be less aggressive, becoming more sociable and involved in personal relationships and engaging more in the private sphere.

An important function of gender education is to distinguish between facts and beliefs or opinions. Moreover it helps participantsto recognize that every individual is complex and unique with a wide range of characteristics. The stereotypes and rigid gender expectations can hinder development and the realizations of the full potential of both girls and boys.Teachers have a unique role in the lives of their students. Teachers can serve as role models and guide students to reach their hopes and dreams. They can play a major role in imparting gender education and ensuring that schools are engendered.

A step towards making schools gender responsive, Educational Development and Improvement Program (EDIP) had organized one week training course from June 11, 2012 to June 15, 2012 for the teachers of EDIP project schools. The purpose of this training course was to develop teachers’ understanding about their role in gender socialization in schools. The cohort consists 33 course participants, 13 were maleswhile 20 were females who attended the training course.

According to demand of the project and need of the training, pre-test and post-test(see annexure A) was conducted to gauge the worth of the training. Test materials were prepared according to the themes toshare during the training course. Almost all participants showed significant improvement in their understanding level in post-test.

This report includes objectives, themes, teaching and learning methods, analysis of quantitative and qualitative assessment. The report also consists of achievements, challenges, recommendations and conclusion of the training course.

Objectives of the Course

Objectives are the intended outcomes of any training course. We expected that after the training,courseparticipants will be able to:

·         Re-conceptualize the concept of gender

·         Differentiate between gender and sex

·         Develop understanding on gender equity and gender equality/gender division of labor

·         Describe how gender enacts itself in a school context

·         Explain some of the gender discriminations in schoolsand society

·         Discuss gender and leadership/experiences of women leadership

·         Verify how textbooks are gender biasness

·         Plan strategies fordeveloping gendered free textbooks

·         Relate how gender can be integrated in School Improvement framework

Themes Covered

Following topics/themes were covered during the sessions. Weekly plan is also attached with the report (See annexure B)

·         Notion of gender/Difference between gender and sex

·         Gender identity

·         Gender disparities in schools/society

·         Gender mainstreaming

·         Gender roles/needs

·         Gender division of labor

·         Gender equality and gender equity

·         Gender and leadership/Sharing experiences of women leadership

·         Approaches and methods in creating gender awareness and advocacy

·         Gender biasness textbook analysis

·         Role of leadership in development

·         Gender socialization/Child rights/social development of child

Teaching and Learning Methods

The course facilitators used effective training and learning methods to share the content of the training course. The bellow list shows some of the instructional strategies used during the training course.

·         Reflection on previous day’s learning

·         Brainstorming before starting new topic

·         Case-studies or stories

·         Think-pair-share

·         Games/Role plays

·         Multimedia presentations

·         Group discussion

·         Lectures/talks

·         Questions/answers

·         Guest speaker’s presentations and questions/answers

·         Individual and group presentations

Quantitative Analysis

We assessed course participants before and after training to gauge the worth of the training. The participants shared literature based, specific and relevant information and definitions in post-test whereas, in the pre-test mostly course participants left the questions without answers or their statements were too general and ambiguous. The following table shows the level of agreements and disagreements of the course participants from every session.

Descriptive Statistics
	Number of Participants	Minimum	Maximum	Mean	Std. Deviation
What is gender	29	3	5	3.90	.557
Gender Discriminations	29	3	5	3.69	.604
Gender Equity	29	3	5	3.86	.743
Gender and Leadership	29	3	5	3.55	.572
Sharing experiences of women leadership	29	3	5	3.52	.634
Gender Socialization in schools	29	2	5	3.41	.733
Role of leadership in Development	29	2	5	3.31	.660
Child rights/social development of a child	29	2	5	3.66	.614
Cumulative mean				3.61

Key: 1= Poor; 2= Fair; 3= Good; 4= Excellent; and 5= Outstanding

The above table shows that majority of the course participants strongly agreed that the training course was very useful and fruitful.Overall, the cumulative mean (CM=3.61) reveals that majority of the course participants found that the training course was excellent. This shows that the training course has achieved its objectives at the end of the course.

Qualitative Assessment

We used reflections and evaluation as tools for qualitative assessment. A course participant’s reflection about the session is attached in the appendix.The following lines show the description of their comments on significant learning shared during their reflections and in evaluation forms.

In their reflections, majority of the course participants mentioned that the training course on gender in education was very effective and useful. More than half of the course participants shared that before this training they thought gender and sex are two terms with same meaning. They revealed that after the training course they understood the difference between gender and sex. In the reflection one of the CP cited that “gender is socially or culturally constructed phenomena which shapes roles and responsibilities for male and female while sex is the biological characteristics of male and female”.

Moreover, two of the course participants shared in their reflections that they did not consider any gender discriminations in schools and society. After attending the training course they realized that gender discrimination is common in our society. They showed their interests (promised) to play their role in minimizing the gender discriminations in their society. Some of the course participants shared real examples of gender issues from the society. This attitude shows that after the training the course participants are sensitized regarding gender issues in the society. They also promised that they will play their active role in giving awareness to the parents.

The course participants mentioned that the training on gender was very fruitful for his personal life. Before this training, he was thinking that a female cannot go outside for their studies or any productive work. He believed that the role of a female is only taking care of children and their role is limited to domestic works. This training course opened his mind that a female can go outside for productive work as well. Her role and responsibility is not limited only inside the home. Our trainers and Dr. Moula Dad Shafa, Head PDCN, also explained this concept with the reference of Islamic point of view. He agreed that female have equal rights in education and other related jobs with male.

During the reflections, one of the course participants shared that an educated female means an educated society. It is fact that an educated mother can better take care of her children. As a result, the society could be well educated. He also shared that the Islam also teaches us to educate every male and female. There is not any discrimination in Islam regarding education, roles and responsibilities. Male and female both can do productive and reproductive tasks in society. Therefore, as a teacher, it is their role to convey the important message to parents and civil society. 

Overall, the CPs found the training course highly productive and very useful but they felt the course duration and time factors for activities were not sufficient.

Achievements

·         All participants agreed the importance and mainstreaming of gender in education.

·         Majority of the course participants agreed and reflected gender discriminations and highlighted gender issues in the society. They promised to play their active role in giving awareness about gender disparities.

·         All of them came with consensus that gender equality and gender equity is the need of the time and as teachers they will perform their role in perpetuating the rights of male and female.

·         They learnt terms gender and sex and differentiated from literature and real life examples

·         They were able to analyze the gendered biasness textbooks and recommended for gendered free textbooks.

Challenges

The course facilitators faced some challenges during the training course. Some of the noteworthy challenges were:

·         The concept of gender was new for most of the course participants; therefore, it was difficult to clear the basic concepts of gender due to shortage of time. 

·         Variety in participants’ learning abilities and understanding level was a challenge to keep pace and level accordingly.

·         Some of the participants did not show up on first day of training.

·         Despite prior information the system did not allow the guest speaker to give sufficient time for questions and answers session.

·         Available materials were mostly in English and it was not possible to translate them all into Urdu within the short time available.

·         It was difficult to cover the whole concepts of gender in one week so, there were some misconceptions among course participants.

·         As there was space issue for the training session therefore, the venue for the sessions was changed every day.

·         The faculty members were busy with different training programs; therefore there was shortage of training team.

Recommendations

·         There should be a needs assessment in schools before conducting any session on gender in education.

·         Some clips could also be added on various gender stereotype and gender socialization which allow course participants to discuss and reflect on their own practices and think of implications of new learning.

·         We recommend successive two weeks face-to-face sessions for more clarity of different concepts and participants’ positive attitude towards gender roles and needs.

·         Such training session should be conducted for parents because parents are also key stakeholders of school improvement process.

·         A field visit would be useful to understand how gender enacts in schools.

Conclusion

The training course came to an end successfully and all the objectives were achieved. The course participants considerably changed their perceptions, perspectives of gender and commented that gender is an issue in the society and should be addressed on time. One of the participants commented that before this session he believed that there is not any gender issue in his society but after attending this training course he realized that there are many gender issueseven at his home as well as in the society. The course participants reflected that there are many gender discriminations in theirsociety; females are not given equal rights as men are given. They realized that gender mainstreaming is very important to provide equal opportunities, roles and responsibilities to all men and women. They also identified biasness in the textbooks and recommended to develop gendered free textbooks. Finally, the course participants realized that gender in education is very important concept therefore teachers should be aware with gender roles and gender needs of the students. However, there is always a room for improvement and hence I would like to see the duration of the training program to increase for future courses. The training can be made more effective by analyzing gender socialization process practically in a school context.