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Mainstreaming gender in education — Need to look at cultural diversity

 

 

The Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman has said gender- mainstreaming in teacher education policies and practices in Africa, will require tapping on the knowledge and understanding of the diversity in the varying cultural, social and economic contexts.

She explained that analytical study reports had revealed that countries were at different levels of achievement in terms of gender parity in education and in the teaching profession in particular, as depicted in teacher training policies and training in varying cultural, social and economic contexts.

Professor Opoku Agyeman made the statement in an address read on her behalf by the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Ms Benedicta Naana Biney, at the opening of a four-day workshop on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Guide for mainstreaming gender in teacher-education institutions validation and piloting at the Mensvic Hotel in Accra.

The guide is to enhance the capacity of teacher-training institutions to mainstream gender in their policies, plans, strategies and practices to achieve gender equality and education quality.

Participating countries

The  four-day workshop is to enrich and validate the Guide, discuss its applicability and formulate strategies for scaling up its use in Africa and beyond.

It is being attended by participants drawn from Ghana, Cape Verde, Liberia, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho.

Professor Opoku Agyeman said many studies conducted both locally and globally by her ministry and UNESCO on gender in education continued to reveal several challenges.

Some of the challenges, she said, included the lack of capacity to effectively articulate gender issues in teacher policy, strategy, plans, programmes, planning, management and budgeting, as well as monitoring and evaluation.

The Programme Specialist of the Section for Teacher Development and Education Policies of UNESCO, Ms Florence Elva Ssereo, said the Guide was to achieve gender equality through education and also fight gender stereotyping.

The Executive Director of the Pan African Teachers Centre (PATC), Mr Peter Mabande, urged the participants to pilot the Guide for gender equality in teacher education.

Mrs Alice Sena Lamptey, a Higher Education Technical Adviser of the African Union Commission, who chaired the function, expressed the hope that the participants would take the workshop serious.

 

 

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