Education & Training
Teaching and Learning: Achieving quality for all
UNESCO, EFA Global Monitoring Report, 2013-2014
This Report shows that a lack of attention to education quality and a failure to reach the marginalized have contributed to a learning crisis that needs urgent attention. Worldwide, 250 million children – many of them from disadvantaged backgrounds – are not learning the basics, let alone the further skills they need to get decent work and lead fulfilling lives. It describes how policy-makers can support and sustain a quality education system for all children, regardless of background, by providing the best teachers. It also documents the reductions in aid that are holding back progress towards education goals, and shows how countries can boost education funding by tapping into domestic resources more effectively.
As the international community prepares to formulate post-2015 development goals, the Report makes a compelling case for giving education a central place in the global framework. It presents the latest evidence from around the world of the power of education – especially of girls – to help improve health and nutrition, reduce poverty, boost economic growth and protect the environment. The EFA Global Monitoring Report was established in order to inform, influence and sustain genuine commitment to achieving the Education for All goals by 2015. It monitors progress towards the goals across some 200 countries and territories, and acts as an authoritative reference for education policy-makers, development specialists, researchers and the media.
A girl's right to say no to marriage. Working to end child marriage and keep girls in school
Plan International, June 2013
One in three girls in the developing world is married by the age of 18. Child marriage is a violation of children’s human rights. Despite being prohibited by international human rights law and many national laws, child marriage continues to rob millions of girls of their childhood, forcing them out of education and into a life of poor prospects. This report calls on national governments and the international community to ensure national legislation prohibits child marriage, to ensure girls' access to quality education and to consistently raise child marriage as a human rights issue.
Youth and skills: Putting education to work
Many young people around the world – especially the disadvantaged – are leaving school without the skills they need to thrive in society and find decent jobs. As well as thwarting young people’s hopes, these education failures are jeopardizing equitable economic growth and social cohesion, and preventing many countries from reaping the potential benefits of their growing youth populations. The 2012 Education for All Global Monitoring Report examines how skills development programmes can be improved to boost young people’s opportunities for decent jobs and better lives.
From Access to Equality: Empowering Girls and Women through Literacy and Secondary Education
This report aims to raise public awareness of the importance of investing in girls’ and women’s education. It highlights relatively neglected areas of education that are interrelated: secondary education and literacy. Published within the framework of the UNESCO Global Partnership for Girls and Women’s Education – “Better Life, Better Future” – it provides the Partnership with a strategic vision and gives concrete examples of ways to tackle obstacles to both access and equality. It is hoped that the Report will contribute to re-defining the role of education from a gender perspective in view of supporting the achievement of broader development goals by 2015 and contributing to the post-2015 discussions on gender equality and Education for All.
Because I am a Girl. Africa Report 2012. Progress and Obstacles to Girls’ Education in Africa
Plan’s Because I am a Girl annual global report maps the state of the world’s girls. While women and children are often recognised as specific target groups in policy and planning, girls’ particular needs and rights are often ignored. These reports provide evidence, including the voices of girls themselves, on why girls’ needs require specific attention. This is the first panAfrica Because I am a Girl report, presenting the difficulties faced by girls, their families, communities and teachers across Africa, and how their experience of education is impacted and influenced by policies, cultural practices and traditional values.
World Atlas of Gender Equality in Education
This atlas includes over 120 maps, charts and tables featuring a wide range of sex-disaggregated indicators. The vivid presentation of information and analysis calls attention to persistent gender disparities and the need for greater focus on girls’ education as a human right. It illustrates the educational pathways of girls and boys and the changes in gender disparities over time. It hones in on the gender impact of critical factors such as national wealth, geographic location, investment in education, and fields of study.
Gender Equity Movement in Schools (GEMS) - Campaign Guide & Training Manual for Facilitators
ICRW, CORO, TISS, 2011
The Gender Equity Movement in Schools (GEMS) program aims to promote gender equality among adolescents in school settings by encouraging equal relationships between girls and boys, examining the social norms that define men’s and women’s roles, and questioning the use of violence. The main components of GEMS are group education activities (GEA) and a campaign. The campaign is a week-long series of events, including games, competitions, debates and short plays, aimed at reaching out to students. This campaign guide walks facilitators through steps and ideas to organize similar campaigns on gender and violence in schools.
New Lessons: The Power of Educating Adolescent Girls
The Coalition for Adolescent Girls, 2009
For 15 years, the development community has known about the radically high return of investing in girls’ education, yet little light has been shown on the intersection of education and adolescent girls. This report fills that gap. The authors find that staying in school through adolescence brings immediate benefits to girls during a high-risk phase of life, and long-term benefits to families and communities. This report highlights the unique educational needs of adolescent girls, provides a first-ever compendium of more than 300 past and current programs and spells out concrete actions for change.
Because I am a girl: Girls in the global economy 2009
This is the third in a series of annual reports published by Plan examining the rights of girls throughout their childhood, adolescence and as young women. Focusing on girls in the global economy, the report warns that failing to send girls to school is costing the world’s poorest countries billions of pounds each year. No education means girls are confined to dangerous, unskilled work – neglecting their earning potential.
Education from a gender equality perspective
USAID, May 2008
Over the years, education has focused on access and parity - that is, closing the enrolment gap between girls and boys - while insufficient attention has been paid to retention and achievement or the quality and relevance of education. The primary focus on girls' access to education may overlook boys' educational needs. This approach also fails to confront the norms and behaviours that perpetuate inequality. This paper presents the Gender Equality Framework, which has been designed to address this inequality. A tool for education programmers, the framework helps ensure that education projects meet the needs of all learners.
Stolen Childhood, Lost Learning : Safe Schools, Every Girl's Right
Amnesty International, November 2007
Schools are places for children to learn and grow. But many girls all over the world go to school fearing for their safety, dreading humiliating and violent treatment, simply hoping to get through another day. In this information sheet Amnesty International calls on government officials and schools, supported by parents, community leaders and non-governmental organizations, to take six steps. These include the prohibition of forms of violence against girls and the provision of support services for girls who have suffered violence.
Ideas for Working With Girls
This resource collection on CD-Rom consists of free games, training manuals, workshop guides etc. for teachers, trainers and development workers who are working for and with girls. It includes interactive and participatory training guides and resources on rights, empowerment, violence against women and girls, HIV/AIDS, sexuality and reproductive health and leadership development.
An Annotated Bibliography on Gender in Secondary Education
Commonwealth Secretariat , April 2007
This annotated bibliography brings together the currently available documentation on gender and education in five countries namely -- Ghana, Kenya, India, Nigeria and Pakistan -- with special emphasis on secondary education. The publication should be useful to researchers, policy-makers, planners, teacher educators, government and non-government education managers, as well as activists in this field.
Working with the Media on Gender and Education: A Guide for Training and Planning
Oxfam, January 2006
This guide is designed to help education and gender campaigners, and organisations and coalitions, work more effectively with the media to promote gender-equitable education. It explores issues relating to gender equality in education and contains practical advice on working with the media. Throughout the guide suggestions of activities (accompanied by a set of worksheets) to help groups generate discussion and explore the issues addressed in more depth are given.
Education for Rural People (ERP)
Education is an essential prerequisite for reducing poverty, improving agriculture and the living conditions of rural people and building a food-secure world. Education is a basic right in itself. In spite of this, children's access to education in rural areas is still much lower than in urban areas, adult illiteracy is much higher and the quality of education is poorer.
The fight against poverty and hunger is a fight for justice. Expanding access to quality education for rural people is thus of crucial importance in the realisation of human rights for all and in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This is why FAO and UNESCO are inviting member countries, international agencies and civil society to join the partnership on Education for Rural People (ERP) which is part of the International Alliance Against Hunger and of the Education for All (EFA) initiative.
Beyond Access: Transforming Policy and Practice for Gender Equality in Education
Oxfam, September 2005
In a world in which poverty, social prejudice, and poor-quality provision cause an estimated 100 million girls to drop out of school before completing their primary education, it is not enough for governments to pledge themselves to increase girls’ access to school. This book presents a vision of a transformational education which would promote social change, enable girls to achieve their full potential, and contribute to the creation of a just and democratic society.
Promoting gender-sensitive entrepreneurship via microfinance institutions
Paper presented at FAO Headquarters on 8 March 2005, on the occasion of International Women’s Day
Knowledge about gender issues amongst those involved in providing microfinance services will vary depending on the type of microfinance institution. While the staff of many NGOs involved in microfinance may have a comparative advantage regarding knowledge of gender issues, the lack of business skills among staff within the NGO sector may also limit their ability to sustainably deliver microfinance services to poorer clients.
Girls’ education towards a better future for all
DFID, January 2005
There are still 58 million girls worldwide who are not in school, the majority live in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. A girl growing up in a poor family in sub-Saharan Africa has less than a one-in-four chance of getting a secondary education. The Millennium Development Goal to get as many girls as boys into primary and secondary school by 2005 is likely to be missed in more than 75 countries. This strategy document sets sets out the action DFID will take and the leadership it will provide, with others in the international community, to ensure equality of education between men and women, boys and girls.