Experts Discuss "Gender mainstreaming in education"

How can we move beyond ensuring girls and boys have access to schools, to preventing and reducing school drop-out and providing quality education for all? How can we ensure learning without fear? How do we create safe learning environments in schools? How can we engage with all components of the educational system, from teaching and learning materials, to teachers, school leaders, infrastructure, parents and society at large? How can we measure the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming in education?

These questions provided the basis for Educaid.be’s fourth annual conference that took place on November 25^th in Brussels. I attended this conference and want to share some impressions – it was very timely that the conference took place at the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

                    “246 million children suffer from violence in and around school in many countries around the world - and girls are particularly vulnerable. School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) is a violation of human rights and a serious barrier to learning. It's time for action. Girls should be able to learn without fear. “[1]

                                                                        The Global Campaign for Education-GCE (2014)

The conference focused mainly on concrete and practical aspects of mainstreaming gender in education sharing interventions and programmes experiences for improving gender equity in education. The conference brought together academics and researchers, policy-makers and practitioners from non-governmental organizations. It started with an overview of the current situation on gender and education followed by presentations on different sub-themes, such as school-related gender based violence (SRGBV), gender responsive pedagogy, water, sanitation and hygiene promotion in schools (WASH), measuring gender in education, closing with remarks on “gender, education and the post-2015 agenda”

[1] The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that aims to end the global education crisis.