commonwealth education fund
gender equality in education
 
 
Among those children not in school, girls in many countries experience particular disadvantage in accessing and completing basic education. Girls from poor households are more likely to miss out on a chance to go to school, and those girls who do attend may be hindered by gender-biased textbooks, negative attitudes and stereotypes, or something as simple as a lack of separate toilets for girls, which often leads to dropouts as girls reach puberty.

In the early years of CEF (2003-05), countries included gender in their strategic plans and partners’ activities. But as the primary focus in many countries was building
solid foundations for the coalitions, results on gender work were uneven. Some early CEF work on gender included:		    
CEF gender equality in education
 
 
  • supporting an Islamic boarding school for girls in The Gambia
  • creating girls’ clubs to discuss the issues surrounding female education in Mozambique
  • partner work in rural Nigerian communities to influence sociocultural practices that keep girls out of school (eg girls not being able to walk long distances to school alone and child marriage – as early as eight years old).
CEF partners in Kenya worked on a campaign to provide girls with sanitary towels. These were also included in some of the provisions CEF advocated for in Northern Uganda, where girls who had been displaced due to conflict needed help to finish
school exams. Some partners also looked at policy issues on gender, such as girls being excluded from school due to pregnancy. There had been some good work done by partners, but in its mid-term review in 2005, CEF recognised that gender equality issues needed more urgent attention and set up the Gender Equality in Education Project
(GEEP).
CEF Gender Equality in Education Project (GEEP)
Following its 2005 Mid-Term Review, the CEF committed itself to encouraging deepening the gender dimensions in its own practice. The Gender Equality in Education Project (GEEP) was a two year project of capacity building for gender equality in the CEF, its work and its outcomes. The project began in September 2006 and worked through CEF Gender Mentors in four CEF countries (Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi). Their experiences are captured in the documents below. 

Seven documents were developed to share learning outcomes from GEEP with a wider audience. GEEP Kenya developed a training guide which was used during group and one-to-one mentoring sessions. Ghana developed case study examples of the impact
of GEEP work. Malawi developed a narrative of GEEP activities and produced a reflective report. The gender project manager wrote a reflective report on the experience of the project. GEEP contributed to three editions of the Equals newsletter produced by the Institute of Education, University of London: Equals 19 on the Commonwealth Education Fund – guest edited by the gender project manager; Equals 20 on the experience of gender mainstreaming in the GEEP; and Equals 22 on the mentoring experience by a GEEP partner, one mentor and the gender project manager.
This has provoked interest in the mentoring approach.

Promoting gender equality in education through mentoring
O. Dibba-Wadda (2009)

Mentoring provides long term support to partners to facilitate learning, enthusiasm and confidence and it differs from advisory support in that the Mentor is not supposed to set the agenda or provide the answers but to help staff from partner organisations do their own work for themselves, providing process support and guidance through one-to-one and group discussions. Partners were supported to document innovative approaches that have a positive influence on strategies for improving gender equality in education. Reflecting on the experience of the CEF GEEP, this report shares some of the steps in implementing the project, achievements and challenges, with recommendations on elements of a good mentoring project.
CEF Commonwealth Education Fund
click on the image
to open the report
CEF GEEP country-level work
please click on titles or report covers below to download
CEF GEEP Ghana Final Report
CEF Ghana (2008)		  
CEF Gender Equality in Education

CEF GEEP Kenya Final Report:
Mainstreaming Gender in Education Using the Group Mentoring Approach
Kamau, N. (2008)		  
CEF GEEP Kenya
CEF GEEP Malawi Final Report:
Lessons Learnt in Malawi - Mentoring Process and Practice
2006-2008
 Mede, E. (2008) 		 


Experience of Mentoring to Mainstream Gender in Education in CEF GEEP countries  


GEEP mentoring experience - Case study on Kenya National Association of Parents  
CEF GEEP monitoring and evauation system
Equals Newsletter
The CEF guest-edited the April 2007 issue (no.19) of the Beyond Access Project's Equals Newsletter, which explores some of the ways in which civil society organisations are working to ensure that gender is mainstreamed through their own work, and in national and local education plans and budgets.
CEF also supported Equals Newsletter October 2008 issue (no. 22), which highlighted how training on gender, different forms of learning resources and multi-faceted support for work on gender have been used in community empowerment, education and health projects. To download these issues (in English, French, Spanish and Bangla), please click here to visit the Beyond Access website.

Beyond Access Equals Newsletter
 Selected documents from CEF partner work on gender
     
CEF Bangladesh partner:
The Innovators is an independent progressive think tank which aims to contribute to innovation in development through research, advocacy, solidarity and action. Their report Scaling Up argues that gender equality is not coherently assimilated by the current theoretical trends in education nor by the practices of the formal and informal systems.
 
CEF Ghana partner:
Northern Network for Educational Development (NNED)
In the absence of reliable and accurate information on the gender parity in education in its operational areas - the three northern regions of Ghana - NNED commissioned a survey to examine why some districts have made greater progress toward the attainment of gender parity than others.
 
Achieving Gender
Parity in Basic
Education in
Northern Ghana
Cover
Main Report
Appendices
CEF Kenya partner:
Girl Child Network (GCN) lobbies for gender-sensitive education policies, as well as mobilising communities to advocate for girls education.
 
CEF Malawi partner:
Development Aid from People to People (DAPP) Child Aid Program is a child rights project, with a focus on gender and HIV/AIDS and facilitation of advocacy by district education networks.
 
CEF Mozambique partners:
Mahlahle - Associação Para a Promoção e
Desenvolvimento da Mulher (Mozambican Association for Promotion and Development of Women) and LDÇ - Liga dos Direitos da Criança (League of Children’s Rights) worked with School Councils to improve girls' education