UNESCO Clearinghouse on GCED

35 Results found

Cracking The Code: Girls’ and Women’s Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Year of publication: 2017 Corporate author: UNESCO Despite significant improvements in recent decades, education is not universally available and gender inequalities persist. A major concern in many countriesis not only limited numbers of girls going to school, but also limited educational pathways for those that step into the classroom. This includes, more specifically,how to address the lower participation and learning achievement of girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. STEM underpins the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and STEM education can provide learners with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behavioursrequired for inclusive and sustainable societies. Leaving out girls and women in STEM education and careers is a loss for all. This report aims to ‘crack the code’, or to decipher the factors that hinder or facilitate girls’ and women’s participation, achievement and continuation in STEMeducation, and what can be done by the education sector to promote girls’ and women’s interest in, and engagement with, STEM.

Her Atlas: Interactive Advocacy Tool on Girls’ and Women’s Right to Education Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO Many girls and women cannot exercise their right to education due to gender inequality and discriminatory practices. Poverty, early marriage, and gender-based violence are just some of the many reasons behind the high percentage of global female illiteracy and school drop-outs. Strengthening the right of girls and women to quality education is key to eliminate discrimination and to achieve equal rights between genders. This cannot be achieved without solid national legal frameworks that are rightsbased, gender responsive and inclusive. This is where HerAtlas comes in. HerAtlas, is a first of its kind online tool that maps the right to education of girls and women. It aims to enhance public knowledge and monitor the status of national constitutions, legislation and regulations related to education rights for girls and women to encourage countries to take action, strengthen their laws and policies, and lead to long term change. Concrete changes are already apparent. In 2019, 4% of countries were explicitly restricting the right to education of married, pregnant, and parenting girls. This has dropped to 2% in 2022, benefiting millions of girls who can now legally attend school when they marry or become pregnant.

Protect Her Rights, Strengthen Your Laws: Her Atlas; Status Report on Girls’ and Women’s Right to Education Year of publication: 2022 Corporate author: UNESCO UNESCO’s Her Education, our future initiative, Her Atlas was launched in 2019 with the aim to enhance public knowledge and monitor the status of national constitutions, legislation and regulations related to girls’ and women’s education rights in order to encourage countries to take actions to improve their legal frameworks. Three years after its launch, the research phase has been completed: overall, the legal frameworks of 196 countries have been thoroughly analyzed to evaluate the level of protection of girls’ and women’s right to education around the world. In an interactive world map format, Her Atlas uses a color-coded scoring system to monitor 12 indicators of legal progress towards gender equality in the right to education. This report marks the completion of the first research phase and intends to highlight some key trends outlined by the research work, and to emphasize examples of legal provisions regarding some aspects of girls’ and women’s right to education guaranteed by States’ domestic laws.

Leave No One Behind: Gender Equality in Transforming Education Summit National Commitments Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO The Transforming Education Summit was convened in response to a global crisis in education – one of equity and inclusion, quality and relevance. This paper applies a gender lens to the national statements of commitments made by countries during the Summit. It considers the scope of commitments to gender equality and gender- transformative education, common gender themes and considerations emerging across commitments, and notable gaps. It aims to inform future actions by the Global Platform to Drive Leadership and Accountability for Gender Equality and Girls’ and Women’s Empowerment in and through Education, and support to country action to transform education systems to advance gender equality.

Communication Strategy: UNESCO Guidance on Communicating on Gender Equality in and through Education Year of publication: 2022 Corporate author: UNESCO About 259 million children and youth are out of school according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, including 127 million girls and 132 million boys. Twothirds of the 750 million non-literate adults around the world are women. This gender disparity remains one of the persistent challenges in adult literacy and education. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing challenges, disrupting the education of over 1.5 billion learners. UNESCO estimates that close to 24 million children and youth, including over 11 million girls and 13 million boys, may drop out of school due to the pandemic’s economic impact. A window of opportunity is now more than ever open to build back equal. This communication strategy is designed to provide strategic guidance on communicating on gender equality in and through education. While prepared for UNESCO Education Sector staff, including those at Headquarters, in Field/Regional/Cluster Offices and in Institutes as well as for implementing partners, a broader audience of gender focal points, partners, Member States and others with an interest in and commitment to gender equality in and through education may also find this strategy particularly useful.

Supporting women participation in higher education in Eastern Africa: building sustainable and equitable higher education systems in Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda Year of publication: 2023 Author: Mitullah, Winnie V. | Forojalla, Sibrino | Basheka, Benon | Vieira do Nascimento, Daniele | Jallow, Saidou Sireh | Awol, Endris Adem | Feddal, Scheherazade Corporate author: UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) <Executive Summary>Some takeaways from the Report:Policy frameworks and various legislations have enhanced the implementation of programs aimed at improving women’s education from primary school to university level. At the Higher Education (HE) level, some progress has been made, but the institutions are lagging behind in having gender parity, more so in top leadership positions. Men dominate leadership positions. At lower education levels, progress is hampered by socio-economic and cultural gender inequities, and limited resources. Socio-cultural practices such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and early marriages have also had a negative effect on women’s advancement to HE.There are multiple factors that hinder women’s participation in HE and in reaching leadership positions. These include fewer women having PhD, maternal household engagement, limited time for participation in research and related activities that are a requirement for upward mobility as well as lack of child care and women-friendly facilities within universities. Ongoing mainstreaming of gender in HE is improving the situation, albeit minimal. More effort is needed to increase the number of women in HE. In addition, there is limited administrative commitment on the part of the universities to address gender inequality in leadership positions.Overall, HE institutions have not fully exploited opportunities that exist for gender advancement in HE, including potential partnerships for supporting the advancement of women. There is need for effective governance to achieve gender equality and collaboration between HE institutions, and development partners through public-private partnerships. Such partnerships have the potential for making resources available and for funding opportunities to enhance the support to women students, in particular those undertaking STEM courses which require more time for study.In Kenya, higher education has evolved over time from the technical and commercial institute in Nairobi – the Royal Technical College of East Africa – established in 1951 to offer technical courses within the East Africa region. The college was transformed to Royal Technical College in 1961, and later to the University of Nairobi in 1970. From this initial one university, Kenya currently has 32 chartered public universities, 9 public university constituent colleges, 21 chartered private universities and 3 private university constituent colleges.In South Sudan, at its commencement, missionary education did not provide for girls. When schools re-opened in August 1956, the Sudanese government authorities maintained the closure of the girls’ schools, irrespective of whether government or missionary, for the following four to five years. The impact has been the severe retardation of girls’ education for almost a generation. Tradition and tribal customs regarding gender equity are still very strong and dominant in everyday life. Consequently, traditional male stereotypes also dominate within almost all higher education institutions, including the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHEST) itself. This research is in fact the first time an effort is being made to investigate the participation of women in HE and in leadership positions in universities and other tertiary institutions. This explains the very limited response to the questions sent out to the institutions outside Juba. Today, however, a good start has been made in advancing girls’ education in general.In Uganda, under similar circumstances, women do not have good access to higher level jobs, positions, voice and wealth like men. The low representation of women in leadership positions in higher education institutions in the country can be traced back to the late start in women’s enrollment in modern schooling due to a number of factors.

UNESCO Malala Fund for Girls' Right to Education Corporate author: UNESCO The UNESCO Malala Fund for Girls’ Right to Education was launched in 2012 to expand girls’ access to quality education, especially in countries affected by conflict and disaster.

Evaluation of UNESCO's Programme Interventions on Girls' and Women's Education Year of publication: 2017 Author: Michael Reynolds, Martina Rathner, Estelle Loiseau Corporate author: UNESCO Internal Oversight Service (IOS) Since 2008, Gender Equality has been one of two global priorities for UNESCO. In May 2011, UNESCO launched the Global Partnership for Girls’ and Women’s Education, also known as “Better Life, Better Future”, which aims to increase learning opportunities for adolescent girls and women and to find solutions to some of the biggest obstacles to their education. To further advance the global priority of Gender Equality, since 2015 a dedicated Section of Education for Inclusion and Gender Equality specifically addresses the gender dimensions in education that contribute to differential access, participation, completion, and learning outcomes by boys and girls, and men and women. The evaluation examines UNESCO’s programme interventions in girls’ and women’s education during the period 2015 to 2017, in particular to ascertain the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of initiatives, and to clarify the strategic role and positioning of the Organization in supporting girls’ and women’s education at regional and country levels.The evaluation found that although UNESCO’s efforts for enhancing girls’ and women’s education are clearly aligned to SDG 4 and SDG 5 and also broadly in line with the overall principle of leaving no one behind, there is at times a trade-off between targeting the hardest to reach and other donor priorities, and UNESCO needs to more clearly position its efforts in support of girls’ and women’s education and its niche in the 2030 Agenda. Furthermore, continued efforts are required to scale up and/or replicate small-scale interventions, to better ensure sustainability and to consolidate mechanisms for coordination and information sharing among different interventions to seize synergies and enhance organizational learning.

Discussion Paper for Women's Education and Political Participation Year of publication: 2012 Author: Subhalakshmi Nandi Corporate author: Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) This paper is an outcome of the presentations and discussions from the Quality Adult Education (QAE) Benchmarking Workshop held in Jakarta in November '10, as well as a subsequent meeting of the core group for finalizing the paper (this meeting was held in New Delhi in March '11).

Promoting health and literacy for women's empowerment Year of publication: 2016 Author: Anna Robinson-Pant This publication is the third in a series of research studies focused on literacy and women’s empowerment. Its aim is to contribute to the development of crosssectoral approaches to the provision of adult literacy, education and training, traversing policy on education, family, integration, citizenship, health, social welfare and public finance. This paper uses a number of specific examples to show how literacy programmes for young people and adults, with a particular focus on young and adult women, can contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Resources