mainstreaming gender for better girls' education: policy and

MAINSTREAMING GENDERFOR BETTER GIRLS'EDUCATION: POLICY ANDINSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Ramya Subrahmanian

Titles in this Series

The Move to Programme-Based Approaches – An Effective Partnership for Girls' Education?The Experience of Recent EvaluationsTed Freeman

Educating Girls in South Asia: Promising ApproachesBarbara Herz

Reaching the Girls in South Asia: Differentiated Needs and Responses in EmergenciesAlexandra Mathieu

Mainstreaming Gender for Better Girls' Education: Policy and Institutional IssuesRamya Subrahmanian

Measuring Gender Inequality in Education in South AsiaElaine Unterhalter

Addressing Social and Gender Disparity in South Asia Through SWAPs and PBAsin Education: How Can We Use World Experience?Amanda Seel

MAINSTREAMING GENDERFOR BETTER GIRLS'EDUCATION: POLICY ANDINSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

Ramya SubrahmanianResearch Fellow, Institute of Development StudiesUniversity of Sussex, UK

© The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

Regional Office for South Asia; and

United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI)

October, 2006

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constitute an endorsement by UNICEF or UNGEI.

Chair, Steering Committee: Susan Durston

UNGEI: Raka Rashid

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CONTENTS

Series Foreword ................................................................................................ v

1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 1

2. What is Meant by 'Mainstreaming for Better Girls' Education'? .................... 4Lessons from the South Asian Sub-region ................................................... 5From Gender Parity to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment:Adding Up to a ‘Whole’? ............................................................................ 9What Do We Mean By ‘Mainstreaming’? ................................................... 11

3. Reframing an Approach to Gender Mainstreaming .................................... 15

4. International Policy and Institutional Context for Gender and Education .... 18Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRS) .................. 19Gender Mainstreaming in SWAps ............................................................. 23

5. Ways Forward .......................................................................................... 26

References .................................................................................................... 28

About the Author ............................................................................................ 31

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MAINSTREAMING GENDER FOR BETTER GIRLS' EDUCATION:POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

v


SERIES FOREWORD

There is a growing sense of momentum around education in South Asia.Governments are engaged and a lot has been done. The MillenniumDevelopment Goals have added an additional spur to action as indeed havegreater awareness on gender disparity and the need for educated workers. Thereis though a long way to go if the rights of all children are to be realised.

Providing access to education is only part of the story. Once children areenrolled and attending, the quality of their education must make it a worthwhileexperience. The special needs of girls in the social and cultural context of SouthAsia call for special measures, as do the needs of all children in situations ofconflict and emergency. South Asia has many rich, positive examples of successin advancing basic education. It is important that these are shared and built on ifthere is to be an overall improvement throughout the region.

This series of papers aimed at promoting better education in South Asia grew outof collaboration between the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia and thenewly formed UN Girls' Education Initiative, and had its genesis at a RegionalMeeting on Accelerating Girls' Education in South Asia in February 2005.

Essentially the series is intended to be a forum that allows debate, exchange ofideas and to break new ground. It will aim to capture the momentum and extolgood practice to all engaged in educational policy and implementation.

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The series does not seek to represent a specific viewpoint, but rather is intended toenable specialist contributors to present issues in greater depth and breadth than isoften the case in official documents.

Initially the series will focus on girls' education but it is hoped that eventually it willbroaden into a platform for more general education issues related to South Asia, witha particular emphasis on social inclusion. Contributions and feedback are invitedfrom academics and practitioners from throughout the South Asia region and beyond.The series editors are particularly interested in submissions which offer new ideasand strategies that can assist those needing answers, and which can add impetus tothe ongoing efforts in the region to provide quality education for all.

Come, join the debate!

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INTRODUCTION

1

The South Asian region has, despitedeep social and economic inequalities,and high levels of poverty, made rapidprogress towards universalizing girls’education and achieving gender parity,within a relatively short space of time.The burst in action in the countries ofBangladesh, in particular, followed byIndia, Pakistan and Nepal, has been theresult of the confluence of numerousfactors – a more conducive internationalaid environment that has seensignificant amounts of aid disbursementto primary and basic education,governments more aware of theimportance of promoting genderequality, supported by internationalprocesses such as the Beijingconference of 1995, feministmovements having pushed for greaterattention to issues of gender equalityand women’s empowerment, amongst

others. Numerous civil societyinnovations have also helped offerdemonstration models for governmentsto learn from and adapt, and these haveensured that the enrolment of girls hasrisen at a speedy level.

Significant challenges remain. Theseare well-known and merit just a verybrief summary. Gender disparities inenrolment remain high in India, Pakistanand Nepal, despite the progress made.Bangladesh, India and Nepal have lowsurvival rates, and India has the highestsurvival disparity in favour of boys.These disparities widen at secondaryand tertiary levels. The gap at secondarylevel is particularly disturbing. Thetransitions between primary–upperprimary and upper primary–secondaryare the weak links in the chain of genderequality; and they coincide with the time

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that a girl’s future opportunities arecrucially determined.

Educational progress is at a criticaljuncture. Although the 2005 MDG targethas been missed, we have made enoughprogress to know broadly what needs tobe done and how. The challenges are totake those lessons and link themtogether for a ‘total’ approach toeducation, which links up the variousstages of education, and the varioustypes of intervention for children’seducation, and streamlines movementbetween them as far as possible. Manychildren now have access, but arefalling through the cracks betweenprovision of different stages ofeducation, or different types of provision.In the area of gender, there is a relatedchallenge: moving from parity toequality. While many advocacy slogansabout girls’ education have beenimportant in getting the region quite farin terms of reaching out to girls, this hasonly led as far as making progresstowards gender parity. Attention needs tofocus on the next goal – gender equality.

Making that shift requires getting a bettergrasp of what is meant by genderequality, how it can be measured andthereby progress towards it marked, andhow institutions and systems can bestrengthened to ensure that they upholdstandards of gender equality thatfacilitate and stimulate social changeprocesses.

However, there are numerous systemicissues that remain to be resolved, inorder to achieve sustainable change ineducation for girls in the Indian sub-continent in particular. Sri Lanka and theMaldives achieved high rates ofeducation and gender parity throughsystemic reforms that helped promotemore effective management of servicedelivery. Yet in the remaining countries ofthe region, the development of systemiccapacities, structures and appropriateprocesses remains mired in political andinstitutional failures. These provide thechallenges to which this paper is broadlyaddressed. In this paper, the focus is onthe capacities and resources that areassociated with a) international aidmodalities through which internationalresources and policy influence are beingchannelled; and b) gender mainstreamingwithin national and sub-nationalbureaucracies through which policies andprogrammes are designed.

The paper starts by asking: ‘What ismeant by better girls’ education?’ Thissection outlines some of the key issuesraised by practitioners of equity and

"Making that shift [to gender equality]

requires getting a better grasp of what

is meant by gender equality … and how

institutions and systems can be

strengthened to ensure that they uphold

standards of gender equality that

facilitate and stimulate social change

processes."

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quality based education interventionsfrom the South Asian sub-region aboutwhat it will take to make a sustaineddifference on the ground. In particular,the focus is on concepts of genderequality that are required to frameoperational strategies, in order to buildthe basis for long-term and empoweringchange processes.

Many of the requirements for a sustainedchange are not matched at present byexisting capacities and strategies ofinstitutions that facilitate policies,allocate resources, and determine theagenda at the macro level. Theseinclude donor agencies, governmentsand international and national NGOs thathave a role and voice in shaping policy.In particular, the agenda for keepingalive the interests and needs of younggirls, and the adult women who care forthem in myriad ways, reduces in scopeas we go higher up the policy chain.

What has come to be commonly knownas ‘gender mainstreaming’ is in essencea complex and comprehensive set ofstrategies to effect, enable and sustainchange. Yet, many of the efforts at policylevel fail to reflect complex realities andneeds.

In the second section, the questionposed is: ‘What is meant bymainstreaming gender?’ Concepts ofgender mainstreaming are brieflyreviewed as are some issues relating tothe record of gender mainstreamingwithin national government systems.This question is then located in thecontext of current trends in educationpolicy and financing, particularly gendermainstreaming in the context of the shifttowards Poverty Reduction Strategypapers as a basis for countrydevelopment plans and for donorassistance, and Sector-WideApproaches.

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2

WHAT IS MEANT BY ‘MAINSTREAMING FORBETTER GIRLS’ EDUCATION’?

First, what is meant by ‘better girls’education’? Expansion of access is not asufficient policy indicator of ‘better girls’education’, though clearly it is animportant starting-point. What remainsmore important is to question what kindof education is being provided, andunder what conditions. Merely gettinggirls to school is no guarantee ofqualitative outcomes, a fact which isnow well-established in internationalliterature (see for example the GlobalMonitoring Report of 2003–04published by UNESCO).

Reviews of promising and innovativepractices on the ground have generatedseveral lessons. These include therecognition that change for genderequality means not just providingincentives and creating opportunities forgirls to participate in school alongside

boys. Important though such accessexpansion measures remain (Herz andSperling, 2004), there is a critical needto create social consensus about theimportance of girls’ education. Wherethere is deep fear of the potential forchange in gender relations in favour ofgreater equality between the sexes,which is likely to be generated as aresult of more female participation inpublic life, from school to community tostate, such social consensus is oftendeveloped through listing narrowlydefined economic and social benefits,rather than emphasizing broaderindividual freedom outcomes. This isoften a struggle in societies wheregender equality is not considered adesirable aspect of the social order.However, without some effort to shiftsocial consensus, first towards enablingaccess for girls to school and then

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BY 'BETTER GIRLS' EDUCATION'WE MEAN …

a. Gender-sensitive targetingb. Deepening understandings of

gender equalityc. Reconceptualizing learningd. Making schools more responsive

to local needse. Child-centredness and the

empowerment of girlsf. Involving parents, especially

mothers, in decision-makingg. Intervening in social spaces to

influence changeh. Empowering and resourcing

teachers, especially womenteachers

i. Building traditions thatcelebrate learning

j. Using research to identifyproblems and hear voices ofstakeholders

k. Ongoing monitoringl. Legalizing rights.

towards allowing girls an element ofchoice in decisions that affect theirlives, there is unlikely to be sustainablegender parity, and meaningful movementfrom gender parity to gender equality.

Lessons from promising practices(Subrahmanian, 2005a; CommonwealthSecretariat, 2005) also highlight theimportance of linking promotion of girls’access to education to learningprocesses. To ensure sustainableimprovements in female education, bothaccess and quality reforms cannot beseparately conceived, but requireintegrated conceptualization andplanning. Efforts to prepare teachers toboost enrolments in school will proveonly partially fruitful if the sameteachers are not supported to improvetheir teaching skills and practices toensure that those children all remain inschool, with learning processes that aresupported by school, community andfamily to the extent possible. This isparticularly true for sustaining genderequity initiatives. Teachers may be givena role in mobilizing parents and gettinggirls to school, but if they do little toencourage girls in the class (orconversely, actively discourage girls)they are likely to be ineffective inpromoting change.

Lessons from the South AsianSub-region

A review of lessons from the South Asiansub-region held in 2004 generated

several key lessons that have implicationsfor efforts to scale up and sustain progressin the sub-region. These are elaboratedbelow (see Box). They are not offered as apiecemeal menu for change, but as a setof actions and commitments that cantogether enable rapid change in thesituation of girls’ education.

Despite these rich lessons, schoolingsystems in South Asia remain weak,particularly in terms of systems

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management and quality. Innovationsare often operational outside the formalschooling system, and indeed succeedlargely because they are not constrainedby the difficulties of reforming largebureaucracies. The problem of ‘islandsof success’ has been long recognized indevelopment, and ‘scaling up’ is anissue that is being grappled with inmany developing countries. Yet, thegovernance dimensions of educationreform receive less attention despiterecognition of its importance; changesin the ‘mundane’ everyday practices ofbureaucracies, including auditing,monitoring and day-to-day taskmanagement, are necessary but areseldom the subject of educationdeliberations. The institutional basis of‘scaling up’ attracts insufficientattention. Thus the focus on successfulprojects and innovative approachescontinues, with little impact on thefunctioning of education bureaucracies,despite efforts to ‘decentralize’ and‘localize’. Efforts to reform, even whenlocated within government, often operateas special programmes and initiatives.

Thus, ‘scaling up’ remains to a greatextent a discussion about numbers,rather than institutions and processes(Subrahmanian, 2005a). For advocatesof gender mainstreaming – who havelong maintained the importance ofsystemic change in rules, proceduresand resources distribution in order toensure gender equality is reflected in alldevelopment policies, processes and

institutions – this remains a source ofpersistent frustration. When ‘scaling up’is discussed without any attention to theroots of change required for genderaware development, or education servicedelivery, there is unlikely to be the kindof attention to gender-sensitive servicedelivery that is required for change inthe ability of all girls to accessschooling. As suggested earlier, the‘access’ agenda is not just aboutenrolment (as defined as registration ofthe name of the child in school) – itincludes the ability to attend schoolwithout disruptions. Where there aredisruptions, ensuring that excluded girlshave the ability to re-enter school and beencouraged to learn withoutencountering discrimination is critical.Removing restrictions on the freedom tolearn, to play and to grow into youngcitizens with a wide palette ofopportunities and capacities remains theoverarching challenge. Of equalimportance, from a gender equalityperspective, is the concern that withoutattention to these systemic changes,boys will remain fettered withinconstructions of masculinity that areequally restrictive, and may continue toview women in stereotypical ways,perpetuating gender imbalances in waysthat are socially and otherwiseunproductive.

Yet the process of moving from small-scale innovations to designinginstitutional change based on lessons ofthese innovations is fraught with

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questions. Are ‘innovation’ and‘institutionalization’ terms incontradiction? Don’t innovationssucceed because they are small-scaleand not embedded in large-scalebureaucratic systems? Is it feasible tothink of changing systems given that inthe short-term so much change appearsto have been facilitated throughtemporary measures? On the other hand,are processes of change that rely ontemporary measures likely to sustain?

What happens when temporary measuresrun their course? In countries wherethere are many alternative educationalmeasures that provide schooling to out-of-school children, it is often hard totrace and know what happens to childrenonce they move on from alternativeprogrammes. This raises importantissues about ‘education mainstreaming’,a term that reflects the expectation thatalternatives will serve as feeders into theformal schooling system.

LESSONS FROM THE SOUTH ASIAN SUB-REGION

At a workshop held in 2004 on ‘Promising Practices and Implications for Scaling UpGirls’ Education’, which brought together representatives of NGOs and governments inthe sub-region who had been involved in innovative programmes that haddemonstrated impact on girls’ education, several lessons emerged which have beendocumented in the workshop report (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2005) some ofwhich are briefly presented here. These lessons show the interlinkages discussedabove, between efforts to enrol girls, efforts to improve quality schooling throughestablishing locally responsive curricula and learning processes, and reforms that canmake schooling systems more flexible and hence better adapted to local needs andconstraints.

Gender sensitive targeting: A crucial dimension of gender-aware educationalintervention and innovation is the targeting of those sections of populations who mostrequire attention. Targeting particular sub-sets of groups, and giving preferential focusto girls in order to balance out social distortions in the allocations of resources andopportunities, are measures that have a proven impact on girls’ education. Suchtargeting helps to focus attention on these groups of girls, in a way that enables theirfamilies and communities to view them in a new light, and to see the value ofinvesting in their futures.

Deepening understanding of gender equality: Deepening focus on gender equality isoften at odds with target-based approaches to development – because the strategies

8


involved often do not show tangible, measurable results but are more process-based.The more visible aspects of focus on gender parity – the demand for girls’ education –may mask underlying social resistances to gender equality, and changing underlyingsocial mores and views requires greater investment of time and effort.

Reconceptualizing learning: The failures of state systems largely represent failures todeliver modes of learning that are attractive, relevant and important for the diversecommunities and individuals that make up a society. The importance of viewingeducation as a process that links to broader life processes helps education to be seenby communities as more widely relevant than the narrower audiences to which formalor official curricula may be currently oriented. Linked to this is the need to makeschooling more responsive to local needs through recognizing the diversity of learners,and recognizing that different children will have different needs through the learning-cycle and may be differentially supported by their home environment.

Child-centredness and the empowerment of girls: Child-centredness, in the broadsense of keeping in mind the needs of diverse groups of children, also requiresputting in place additional resources to help children deal with the adverseconsequences of social prejudice and judgement, where required. Whilereconceptualizing learning is central to change, putting children at the centre doesnot only mean giving children responsibilities, or involving them in school decision-making processes, though these are also important elements of child-centredschooling. It also, importantly, requires that teachers and parents are brought in tothe education process based on recognizing and valuing the principle of child-centredness. To empower girls in particular requires creating new skills for young girlsthat can enhance their ability to negotiate with their families to make changes in thekinds of decisions that may be conventionally made for girls, such as postponement oftheir marriage, which can enable them to advance in their schooling.

Involving parents, especially mothers, in decision-making: Mothers have beenconsistently identified as a key driver for change, especially for improving daughters’educational prospects. Reasons for targeting the involvement of mothers are not justabout drawing on their roles as home makers and carers – but as a way of improvingwomen’s capacities and skills to hold service delivery accountable.

Intervening in social spaces to influence change: Interventions only at the level of theschool are bound to leave untouched the many forms of discrimination that ariseoutside the schooling space. Creating a common platform for local project managers,parents, teachers and children provides a medium for the discussion of expectationsand aspirations for girls’ education, problems and the experience of change.

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Empowering and resourcing teachers, especially women teachers: It is striking thatmost women who become teachers do so because their families see it as an‘appropriate’ profession for women, as the work involves children, within anorganization which allows regular vacations, which does not involve much investmentin training and is seen to be relatively easy in terms of time and effort involved. Yet,for the very same reasons – the accommodation of women’s dual responsibilities ashome makers and earning members of the family – women teachers are highlyconstrained in the effective fulfilment of their professional roles. Women teachers areoften constrained in terms of moving to take up teaching jobs in different areas,particularly away from urban centres, as the husband is often seen as the primaryearner determining where the woman takes up her job. Even where women work hard,they shy away from taking on responsibilities (and equally, getting credit) for whatthey do. Concerns about security in more remote areas deter single women teachersfrom professional mobility. In all, despite being continuously recognized as key actorsin universalizing girls’ education, women teachers’ needs and interests are rarelyaddressed.

Other lessons include ensuring that research forms the basis of intervention – at thepoints of design, monitoring and impact evaluation. Research that enables the voicesof stakeholders to be heard – as opposed to just quantitative data that generatesstatistics but little insight into social dynamics that explain outcomes – can providebetter direction to finding creative solutions to access and retention problems.Providing legal entitlements to back innovations – in the form of law that supportssocial changes that are required to support change in girls’ access to and sustainedachievements in education – forms another important set of measures identified.

From Gender Parity to Gender Equalityand Women’s Empowerment: AddingUp to a ‘Whole’?

Gender equality is a stated goal of theEFA agenda for 2015, though nowhere inthe EFA documents is there a definitionor analysis of what this might mean orentail. The lack of clarity has tended toresult in conflation of the concept ofgender parity, on the one hand, andgender equality, on the other

(Subrahmanian, 2005b). Gender paritymeasures the equality of outcome inenrolment between women and men,with parity being calculated in terms ofthe measure 1 (the male standard).Gender equality measures have tendedto be defined in terms of themeasurement of outcomes in subsequenteducational progress of attendance,repetition and completion. Academicachievements are another measure ofequality beyond parity.

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While measurements of outcome areimportant, and a valuable yardstick forcapturing the extent of equity or inequity,they are not sufficient for the purposes ofplanning and intervention if ‘genderequality’ is the stated goal. While suchmeasures may enable better knowledgeabout how girls are faring relative toboys, they still provide little insight intothe processes that are required to ensurethat these outcomes result, given thediversity of contexts and forms of genderinequality. For gender equality to havesubstance as a concept, the route bywhich such outcomes are achievedneeds to be better understood. Boys andgirls have unequal life-chances at theoutset in most communities in SouthAsia, though of course this picture ishighly variable. Equality of outcomes islikely to be variably achieved dependingon the starting positions of males andfemales in a given community orsociety.

The pathways to formal measurableequality thus require considerableinvestment in understanding andresponse. This means that in addition tounderstanding gender equality as‘equality of outcomes’ there needs to be anunderstanding of the concept as ‘equality

of treatment’ as well as ‘equality ofopportunity’. These in turn rest on acommitment to non-discrimination, toensure the erasure of social norms thatconstruct women and men as unequal invalue in terms of their contributions andentitlements, and to ensure that allsocial actors are committed toeliminating stereotypes and attitudesthat reinforce and perpetuateinequalities in the distribution ofresources between women and men(Subrahmanian, 2005b). Assessinggender equality thus requires assessingwhether fundamental freedoms andchoices are as equally available towomen as they are to men.

This deeper meaning of gender equalityis made clear by its twinning with theterm ‘women’s empowerment’ in theMDGs, and the selection of education asa target to measure progress towardswomen’s empowerment and genderequality. Empowerment is defined as aperson’s capacity to make effectivechoices; that is, as the capacity totransform choices into desired actionsand outcomes (Alsop and Heinsohn,2005). For women in South Asia andelsewhere, this capacity is often deniedowing to a set of social structures thatview women as incapable of makingdecisions and choices, and thus underthe guardianship of male protectors.Discrimination based on thisassumption, this construction of womenas unequal to men in matters ofdecision-making, ownership and

"[Empowerment] for women in South Asia

… is often denied owing to a set of

social structures that view women as

incapable of making decisions and

choices …"

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individual rights, continues, despitesome legal advances that stipulateequality.

Empowerment is a complex process,bringing together individual capacitiesand structures of opportunity. Alsop andHeinsohn (2005) break empowermentdown into two core components – thecapacity to make purposive choice, and theopportunity structure, which refers to theinstitutional context in which that choiceis made. The former refers to the kindsof assets (material or non-material) thatan individual has and can use to makepurposive choices, and the latter refersto the kinds of choice that are madeavailable through existing structures andcontexts within which the individual isengaged (legal, policy as well asnormative). Through the interplay ofthese, particular outcomes ofempowerment are derived which breakdown, according to Alsop and Heinsohn,into ‘degrees of empowerment’measured by the existence of choice,the use of choice, and the achievementof choice. Relevant questions thusbecome those of process and context:Does the choice exist? Does the personmake use of the choice? And whatoutcome does the exercise of thatchoice result in?

Applying these conceptual questions tothe project of gender education andpromoting girls’ education will help takeus beyond the limited indicators that wenow have and use, which capture the

‘peopling’ of schools and educationrelated bodies (such as VECs), and atbest gendered outcomes, but move uslittle towards understanding whethersubstantive gender equality is beingachieved, and whether girls and womenare being empowered en route to thesedesired educational outcomes.

Hence the call for expanding the focusfrom quantitatively measurableoutcomes to qualitatively recognizingprocesses of change as critical to thebroader societal shifts that are beingsought with the shift from parity toequality. This requires recognizing thatwhilst making space for more girls andwomen to enter the public sphere isimportant, it is an insufficient conditionfor transformation of inequalities thatcan have a sustainable inter-generational effect in terms of genderequality. While social change mayanyway be quite a slow process, effortsto qualitatively improve the conditions ofparticipation of women and thecapacities they have to negotiatechange in their favour, will help toexpedite progress and sustainachievements in gender parity ineducation.

What Do We Mean By‘Mainstreaming’?

The Beijing 1995 Platform for Actionidentifies two strands in gendermainstreaming that have practical andoperational implications: the integration

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A second key criticism has been thatgender mainstreaming efforts havenecessitated simplifying conceptsrelating to gender inequality and genderrelations, which have in turn fuelledunreal expectations of the ways in whichsocial change takes place(Subrahmanian, 2004b). This isparticularly evident in relation to someof the issues raised in the last sectionabout the conflation of gender paritywith gender equality, underlying themore complex processes that underlinegender inequalities that need to betransformed.

A third criticism has been about policyevaporation – the process through whichgender fades out of the explicitcommitments and actions that followrhetorical claims of the importance ofgender and development – and the lackof analytical clarity about what ‘gender’means. Recent literature oninternational instruments of policy andresource coordination emphasizes bothanalytical weakness and policyevaporation. The lack of attention toorganizational structures is also noted toact as a constraint on following throughmore impressive policy statements(Kanji and Salway, 2000).

Education, compared with many othersectors, has been most receptive toissues of gender, as girls’ education hasbeen identified as an important triggerfor other kinds of social change andpositive development outcomes, and

"A key criticism about gender

mainstreaming has been the 'narrowness'

of the strategy despite the complexity of

gender relations and the contextual

variations in the processes and outcomes

related to gender inequalities."

of gender in policy analysis andformulation, and ensuring that thepriorities of women as well as men areheard in participatory consultation anddevelopment processes (Sibbons et al.,2000).

Over a decade of mainstreamingexperience many lessons have surfaced.Many of these are about the nature ofthe state and its institutions, and thekinds of spaces that are available forpromoting transformative change. A keycriticism about gender mainstreaminghas been the ‘narrowness’ of the strategydespite the complexity of genderrelations and the contextual variations inthe processes and outcomes related togender inequalities. Most mainstreaming‘machinery’ looks the same irrespectiveof the country; most is located at thenational level, rarely reaching sub-statelevels where development change maybe more manageable, and may moreclosely reflect the needs and priorities ofparticular sub-groups. The institutionalcoverage of mainstreaming actors andefforts has also been narrowly focusedon particular departmental units orsections.

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also a matter of individual right. However,most measures to address the largedisparities between females and males ineducation have tended to focus attentionon providing incentives targeted at girls,and at increasing the representation ofwomen in social processes such asSchool Committees and VillageCommittees. While the impact (andpolicy value) of these initiatives is yet tobe systematically studied at a largescale, it is clear that there is a differencebetween standardized mass-scaleapproaches that set up participatoryprocesses, and those that focus onsmaller scale but more intense processesof engagement with communities. Thisdifference is qualitative, pointing to thefact that to make gender ‘mainstream’ itis the quality of effort that matters, notjust the quantity.

Similarly, it is often suggested that thereis a need to increase the number offemales at all levels of the educationsystem with a focus of attention onbuilding their capacity. There is a dangerthat this can be tokenistic, with womencontinuing to play a relatively minor roleeither because of the types ofresponsibilities they are given, orbecause of their own lack of confidenceand/or other commitments whichconstrain them from carrying out theirwork effectively. In many countries,quotas are set for representation ofwomen on school managementcommittees. Even where women areincluded on the committee, they either do

COMMON BARRIERS IDENTIFIED:

Lack of political willUnderfunding of units andministries given responsibilityfor mainstreaming effortsMarginalization and frequentlyshifting location of units withinbureaucratic structuresInstitutionalization ofpatriarchal interests in thenorms, rules and practices oforganizationsDeep-seated resistance bydifferent divisions to taking oncross-cutting issues such asgender, that would encroach ontheir budgetary allocations.

Source: Kabeer (2003)

not turn up to the meetings or, if present,often do not speak as conventionalpatterns of behaviour are re-playedwithin the school setting. In some cases,the lack of women on the schoolcommittee is because, although they areselected, they refuse to join thecommittee since they are already over-burdened with other work (Rose, 2003).There is no reason to expect that womenon the committee have a particularconcern for the education of girls and,even if they do, that they will have theauthority to address it. This highlightsthe importance of transforming genderrelations, rather than a piecemealapproach to including women.

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In the absence of appropriate channelsand procedures within whichcommunities can feed back to thesystem their concerns and complaints(e.g. on teacher absenteeism), there islikely to be little change in shiftingaccountability structures. Systems thatlink community participation to theformal education system are weak, if notnon-existent. The continuing authority of‘providers’ over ‘clients’ undermines thecommunity space, relegating it to asupportive rather than catalytic

"Recent literature on international

instruments of policy and resource

coordination emphasizes both analytical

weakness and policy evaporation."

instrument in universal educationpolicies. This has particular implicationsfor women, as it does little to exposethem to direct contact with the formaladministration, thereby enabling them tolearn new skills and thus break genderstereotypes within the community.

The effort to ‘mainstream’ gender ineducation has largely been focused onmaking women more ‘visible’ inprocesses. This continues to be animportant goal. However, without deeperprocesses to help women and men incommunities understand the costs ofgender discrimination, these processesof visibilization can only partially help tofoster the kind of change that is crucialto sustain girls’ education.

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3

REFRAMING AN APPROACH TO GENDERMAINSTREAMING

A reframed approach to mainstreamingcan be best understood by understandingthe difference between when we use theterm girls’ education and when we referto a gender approach. While mostdefinitions of gender mainstreamingrecognize the importance of bothtargeted approaches as well as gender-aware reworking of institutions ingeneral, gender mainstreamingcontinues to be associated with theformer rather than the latter. However,these are not either/or options. Both areequally important. Targeted interventionssend out clear messages about the valueplaced by the state/intervention onfemale education. However, on theirown, they may do little to alter systemsof provision in such a way that girlsenjoy equality of treatment and equalityof opportunity once they are within thesystem. For that, the gender-awarereform of educational systems is critical.

Conflation of the two will result inconflation between a) outcomes andprocesses (as argued earlier), and b)between the need for politicalconstituency building throughvisibilizing a particular form of gender/educational injustice, on the one hand,and the way in which educationinequalities can be addressed throughthe long-term, on the other. Both arenecessary, and both must go hand inhand. It is easier for the purposes ofvisibility for governments to targetspecific initiatives at girls – however,evidence of the medium to long term

"It is easier for the purposes of visibility

for governments to target specific

initiatives at girls - however, evidence of

the medium to long term impact of those

initiatives on the targeted groups is

lacking."

16


impact of those initiatives on thetargeted groups is lacking. How do theirlife-chances and opportunities improveas a result? What openings are availableto them following their participation in atargeted intervention? For thesequestions to be answered, firstly, thequestions themselves must matter. Anapproach that demonstrates care aboutthe impacts of these interventions ongirls is sorely needed. In the UNESCOGlobal Monitoring Report, this was seenin terms of a framework that linkedrights to education, with rights withineducation, and rights through education(UNESCO, 2003; Wilson, 2003;Subrahmanian, 2003, 2005b). While therecent push in South Asia has focusedlargely on rights to education, there ismuch more progress to be done on rightswithin education. As for rights througheducation, this is an area whichdemands significant rethinking.

Secondly, we need an approach toeducation that links the progression ofchildren through the education system ina more coherent whole. By fragmentingprovision into compartmentalized bits,we run the risk of caring for segments ofchildren’s life, as a consequence ofwhich dropouts often continue after oneintervention has ended and the next hasbegun. For example, while manyalternative providers do work atcommunity level with parents to monitorchildren’s progression once they enterthe formal system, these work at smallscale. The functioning of systems needs

to be revitalized in order for moresystemic linkages to be put in place.

However, the records of most countriesin the sub-region on this score are notimpressive. Apart from Sri Lanka, and toan extent the Maldives, where genderparity has been achieved, in othercountries of the region, a fundamentalobstacle lies in unequal social relations,compounded by others of ethnicity, casteand religion. These also have permeatedinstitutions of the state, and thereforethe biggest challenge is to reframeinstitutions so that they work morefundamentally to the interests of theunequal, the marginalized and thedisempowered.

But the big challenge is how to do this.The record in gender mainstreaming sofar has been at best mixed. Most genderunits established have limited powerthat is unequal to their very ambitiousmandates. They are given the mandateto shape the fortunes of half of the targetpopulation – women – with scarceresources, no status within the system,and with little respect for the large tasksthey are charged to achieve. This is byand large a global story, with someexceptions. In the name of gendermainstreaming, gender has been madethe responsibility of a few specialistunits, and largely seen as a matter oftechnical change, to be achievedthrough the creation of specialprocedures. While these may haveresulted in visibility for gender issues, it

17


is hard to attribute achievements ofgreater awareness to these units, wherewider social changes may have beenencouraged equally, or more, by theactions of the women’s movement withthe support of media, for example. Forthese units the challenge has been two-fold: one, to continue to advocate theimportance of gender to sceptics withinthe system; and second, to continuouslyevolve mechanisms to influence theagenda, monitor what is happening, andso on. To expect these specialized unitsto play either role without the necessaryskills and power is to expect nothingshort of a miracle. Mainstreaminggender in this way has led to theopposite – the ‘ghettoization’ andisolation of people working on gender.

For all the reasons cited above, there isthe need to move from the language of‘mainstreaming’ to the language of‘governance’. Although ‘governance’ hasbecome fashionable with donor

"Discussions on 'gender mainstreaming'

remain relevant, but only in the context of

a broader discourse on institutional

change …"

discourse on ‘good governance’ as aprecondition for economic and socialdevelopment, there is no denying thatbetter institutional functioning leading tobetter service delivery is desperatelyneeded to justify public investment ineducation. Discourses on private sectorinvolvement are deeply linked to theidea of state failure, even though thedependence of poor families, and girls inparticular, on state provided schooling isfairly well-established in the region(Bennell, 2003). Discussions on ‘gendermainstreaming’ remain relevant, but onlyin the context of a broader discourse oninstitutional change, addressed to issuesof reaching excluded groups, tacklinginequality and improving accountabilityof functionaries and providers.

18


INTERNATIONAL POLICY AND INSTITUTIONALCONTEXT FOR GENDER AND EDUCATION

4

International education policy has longemphasized the value of education forgirls, a consensus that has foundmention in almost every criticalinternational conference or rightsdocument relating to development,gender and human rights. Thisconsensus has been achieved throughthe widely accepted correlations drawnbetween female education andeconomic and social developmentoutcomes, which has seen economistssupport the contention that femaleeducation is good for the nation, thecommunity and the individual. However,like national education policies, there issome concern that the internationalpolicy discourse has not been matchedby institutional translation even throughinternational instruments. In this

section, we briefly review the currentinternational policy and institutionalcontext in which girls’ education isflagged as a priority, in order to exploresome of the evidence of the limitationsof gender mainstreaming efforts.1

Analysis of gender mainstreaming inprogramme approaches is relevant bothfor governments as well as donors. Theshift to programme approaches has beenbased on the view that projectapproaches, while effective in reachinglocal communities, do not aggregateupwards to a more holistic policyapproach and systems. Programmeapproaches are particularly favoured bydonors as a way of maximizing theutilization of aid resources, and reducingtransaction costs. Greater donor

1 This section draws heavily on Subrahmanian (2004a).

19


harmonization is seen also as a way ofreducing the transaction costs ofmultiple donors setting up their ownprocesses for influencing and interactingwith government. The shift to PovertyReduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) as abasis of determining both governmentand aid partners’ priorities and goals isalso seen as a way of enhancinggovernment policy ownership andinvolving civil society stakeholders inthe process of setting national and sub-national goals and strategies. Theemphasis on shifting focus ‘upwards’ tobudgets and systems, therefore, holdspromise for the kinds of shifts requiredin gender mainstreaming, as discussedabove.

In this section, two dominant measuresthrough which education policy isnationally set and internationallysupported are reviewed. PovertyReduction Strategies are meant to setthe basic policy frame for povertyreduction which, importantly, includeseducation. Sector-Wide Approaches referto national strategies for a sector,including an overall sector policyframework, priorities, objectives andperformance measures, expenditureprogrammes, institutional reform andcapacity building measures andmanagement, reporting and accountingarrangements (Sibbons et al., 2000).SWAps include a mix of modalities, bothprojects as well as budgetary supportconstrained by conditions particular to asector.

Gender Mainstreaming in PovertyReduction Strategies (PRS)

PRS has been touted as a success ofgender advocacy, in that gender issuesare highlighted as central to nationalpoverty reduction strategies, and thepapers (PRSPs) developed by countrieseligible for funding under this initiativeare required to include detailed genderanalysis in their analysis of poverty, andin their planning and expenditures fordevelopment. Rodenberg (2002) notesthat the approach to gender in the PRSprocess draws on a wider ‘win–win’scenario being articulated ininternational development discourse,that sees ‘a high level of reciprocitybetween greater gender equity,economic growth, and effective povertyreduction’ (p.2).

Four elements are central to thedevelopment of a PRSP (Rodenberg2002):

Comprehensive poverty analysis

Clearly specified priorities forplanned structural economic reformsand social programmes

Adequate targets and indicators forthe process of implementation andmonitoring

Description of the participatoryprocess that has led to thepreparation of a PRSP.

20


Reviews of Poverty Reduction Strategiesreveal disappointing levels of attentionto gender, and analytical limitations.Some of the issues are summarizedbelow.

Limited attention to gender issues: Areview of lessons from the analysis ofthe first PRSPs and Interim PRSPs (I-PRSPs) noted that for all areas includedin the PRSP,2 fewer than half of thedocuments included a detaileddiscussion of gender issues. Particularlylittle attention was paid to issues ofparticipation in consultations, and inmonitoring and evaluation, bothsignificant for ensuring oversight andaccountability for processes and results.A significant proportion of thedocuments, according to this review,contained ‘no reference at all’ to genderfor many areas (Bamberger et al., 2002:338). While health and educationtended to have more discussion ofgender, issues of violence, water supplyand sanitation, agriculture, land rights,rural development, safety nets and foodsecurity, and the environment receivedvery limited discussion of gender (ibid.).Given the interlinkages between girls’access to and participation in educationand other intersecting issues of health,safety, access to safe water andagriculture, these limitations can beseen as quite alarming. In particular,

they conclude that ‘the discussion ofhow to integrate gender into theselection and design of priority publicactions is quite limited, and there aremany missed opportunities’ (ibid.).

Analytical weakness: In their review of sixWorld Bank Poverty Assessments fromfour sub-Saharan African countries(Ghana, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda),Whitehead and Lockwood (1999) note arange of limitations in gender analysis,including variations in the way in whichthe language of ‘gender anddevelopment’ is used and the differentmethodologies used to measure anddefine poverty (see also World Bank,2002). Their analysis and findings arenot dissimilar to the findings of thereview of PRSPs cited above. However,and importantly, they link the poverty ofthe gender analysis to overallweaknesses in the commitment andcapacities of the World Bank withrespect to gender issues. Byperpetuating the long institutionalizedassociation of women with ‘humanresources’ alone, the Bank’s centralmandate and concern with economicgrowth issues have remained worryinglyungendered. The diversity ofmethodologies and approaches usedcould partly be explained by the weakoperational guidelines prepared by theBank in helping national teams develop

2 These include: Poverty Diagnosis (including gender and poverty, labour markets, income and employment, health,education), and Priority Public actions (safety nets, labour markets, income and employment, health and education),Indicators, targets and monitoring and evaluation, and Participation in the consultation process (Bamberger et al., 2002).

21


their assessments (Whitehead andLockwood, 1999).

A further element is the fit or theperceived lack of it between the issuesraised by gender analysis, on the onehand, and the policy mandates withinwhich these analyses are commissioned,on the other, revealing the selectivityand partial nature of policyrecommendations. This is a crucialaspect explaining the analysis–policygap. Gender analyses where donesatisfactorily are contained withinreports as annexes, and are notintegrated into the overall analysis(World Bank, 2002). Whitehead andLockwood’s review of the PovertyAssessments found that much of theanalysis was diluted or not taken intoaccount in the drafting of the policysections, particularly analysis drawnfrom the Participatory PovertyAssessments which record the voices ofpoor women and men. They note thatdespite the variety of methods andapproaches employed in the differentAssessments:

‘…there is a remarkable consistency ofviews expressed on how to reducepoverty, with usually implicit, butoccasionally explicit, implications for thetreatment of gender. These consistentviews can be traced to an orthodoxy inthe World Bank regarding the nature ofpoverty and policy on povertyreduction…’ (1999, p.545)

In particular, they note the probability ofthe standardizing effects of peer reviewson the policy sections on povertyreduction, and the implications of thestandardization for the ‘filtering out’ ofgender issues from the assessments.Processes of dilution are evident acrossthe different stages of production of theAssessments – from the ParticipatoryPoverty Assessments to the PovertyAssessments; and from the empiricallyderived analysis sections to the policysections (Whitehead and Lockwood,1999). This fits in well with Longwe’s(1997) famous discussion of ‘policyevaporation’.

The lack of consensus withinorganizations such as the World Bank onthe operational definitions andperspectives as well as approaches inresearch and policy associated withgender analysis are only likely tomultiply as several agencies cometogether to combine their resourcestowards the achievement of theMillennium Development Goals.Whitehead and Lockwood (1999) notethe difficulties of coordinatedapproaches between national teams,consultants, different donors involvedand task managers who all bringdifferent understandings of gender tobear on their work, which only serve tocompound the weakness of theoperational guidelines discussed above.The struggle for consensus is likely to bethe hardest challenge to surmount.

22


While the Millennium DevelopmentGoals represent one attempt to fashion aconsensus on priorities, managingcoordination is another challenge.Reliance on external consultants for‘gender expertise’ that may be lackingwithin bureaucracies also substantiallyincreases the potential for political andinstitutional distancing from the issuesand perspectives that are relevant forgender mainstreaming.

New mechanisms for aid delivery haveemerged out of a concern with thelimited effectiveness of projectapproaches and the belief in the greaterefficiency of resource pooling betweendonors and strengthened processes ofdebate and dialogue about key areas ofpriorities with governments. Bringing thestate back into the picture has meantthat issues of national ownership havebeen framed as central objectives ofthese new policy tools. Civil societyactivism has also influenced thedevelopment of participatory processesin national planning, such as Oxfam’ssupport for civil society involvement inPRSP processes (Zuckerman, 2002).However, many commentators note that

objectives of national ownership, andwithin national contexts consultationswith stakeholders, particularly thetraditionally voiceless, have scarcelybeen met, belying the claim that theseapproaches constitute new participatorymethods for building sustainabledevelopment (Christian Aid, 2001;Rodenberg, 2002). Bamberger et al.(2002) note that of 19 PRSPs and I-PRSPs, 10 had no reference to genderissues in relation to participation inconsultation processes. A Christian Aidreport notes that the involvement of poorpeople in PRSP related processes hasbeen ‘minimal and superficial’ (2001,p.2), noting particularly the selectivity ofissues on which consultation is invitedand the lack of support provided byinternational agencies to local groupswhose views contradict the policydirections of the PRSPs. Given thecomplexity of gender issues, and thedifficulties of organizing andrepresenting the voices of women, it isclear that gender issues are likely to beexcluded to a greater extent fromprocesses of negotiation and discussion.Even in sectors like health and educationwhich appear to engage more withgender issues, stakeholder participationis traditionally very weak given that thenature of knowledge within those sectorsis largely seen as technocratic andexpert-led (Standing, 2001). Theweakness of consultation approaches hasreduced the legitimacy and credibility ofsuch processes from the perspective ofparticipatory development.

"Reliance on external consultants for

'gender expertise' that may be lacking

within bureaucracies also substantially

increases the potential for political and

institutional distancing from the issues

and perspectives that are relevant for

gender mainstreaming."

23


With regard to education, manyreviewers note that education hasreceived the greatest direct attention ofall sectors with respect to gender. Thismay be influenced by the fact that inthose countries which emphasized theissue most, education as a whole hasbeen seen as a matter of national policyconcern. However, that gender equity ismost articulated with reference toeducation demonstrates the poweraccorded female education in policydiscourses. This is evident also in theMDGs, where education has become aproxy indicator for women’sempowerment. However, many of themeasures recommended reflect thetargeted measures which were discussedearlier. For instance, the IMF and WorldBank Source Book suggests thefollowing strategies:

Reducing the direct and opportunitycosts of girls’ schooling

Siting schools closer to communities

Adding latrines for girls

Hiring more female teachers andfemale education administrators

Involving mothers in schoolmanagement and supervision

Using multi-faceted strategies.

All of these suggest supply sideincreases in resources targeted at girls.

However, at the level of ‘gendered’analysis of resourcing, these strategiesdo not directly address the socialconstraints faced by women in stayingwithin schools and benefiting equitablyfrom outcomes of schooling. None of theinterim or full PRSPs of 16 countriesreviewed for DFID and the World Bank in2002 referred to quality issues at all intheir education sections. Most PRSPs forexample, while showing more attentionto gender issues in education than inother sectors, offer highly generalizedstrategies or references to genderdisparity.

Gender Mainstreaming in SWAps

Building partnership between donors andother stakeholders includinggovernment, SWAps have several inter-related components that allow forcoherent and systematic genderanalysis.

Gender budgets have been promoted asa tool that can help governments andinternational agencies map the extent towhich gender commitments aretranslated into specific results andoutcomes that can be traced, andbudgets can be adjusted to reflect thesecommitments and their implementation(Sarraf, 2003).

Some of the gender issues raised inrelation to SWAps are similar to thoseraised for PRSPs. An OECD-DAC review(2002) notes that in most cases they

24


focus on ‘narrowly defined investmentsin women or girls rather than addressingthe underlying conditions that produceunequal access for males and females’(p.4). Further, without active andeffective ‘champions’, gender equalityissues tended to disappear off theagenda. The dilemma of specialistgender personnel was also raised –having specific posts for genderspecialists tended to leave themisolated and removed the onus ofgender-aware work from other staff; nothaving specialist staff meant that genderwould disappear as a visible agendaissue. The OECD-DAC Working Party onGender Equality in its review of donorsupport for gender equality in education(1999) noted that there was muchconfusion among agency staff workingwithin the field of education regardingthe concept ‘mainstreaming’.

In a major study carried out for DFID,Sibbons et al. (2000) noted that accessissues are emphasized over qualityconcerns, and that the strategies beingpromoted have implications forpromoting girls’ education. For example,they note that by emphasizing primaryeducation, and not post-basic education,

the threshold for education appears to beset very low, which demotivates parentalinterest in educating girls. The review ofgender mainstreaming in PRSPs andSWAps thus highlights that muchremains the same with respect to genderdespite new avenues for policyinfluence, and easier entry points withrespect particularly to education.

Gender budgets in particular have beenstrongly promoted as an opportunity tomove out of the very limiting notions ofwomen and development that wererestricted to traditional line departmentsthat were to do with women or familyaffairs. Advocates of gender equalitycalled for ‘a broadening of the role ofgovernment budgeting in all sectors, andadvocate using government budgeting toreduce inequality in both economic andsocial contexts’ (Sibbons et al., 2000).This new approach involves not onlycentral agencies of government, but alsosectoral ministries and localgovernment. Unlike aid modalities,gender budgeting is a tool that was firstdeveloped by national governments, andis now part of the toolkit thatinternational agencies are promoting tofurther gender analysis in planningprocesses. These support overall effortsto promote budgetary reform through thearticulation of Medium Term ExpenditureFrameworks, which seek to planexpenditure on the basis of assessmentof current and future revenue andexpenditure streams.

"… in most cases [SWAps] focus on

'narrowly defined investments in women

or girls rather than addressing the

underlying conditions that produce

unequal access for males and females'."

25


Diop’s (2004) account of gendermainstreaming in Rwandan educationconfirms some of these points. Shepoints out that gender budget exercisesremain largely perceived as requiring adisaggregation of allocations earmarkedfor ‘women’, rather than understanding

the importance of and developingmethods for analysing andinterpreting gender disaggregatedimpacts of resource allocations. Thisis also a feature of policy making inIndia (see Jha and Subrahmanian,2006).

26


WAYS FORWARD

In summary, this paper has raised a fewkey points in moving the gender agendaforward in education. One is to evaluateand derive policy lessons from the richexperience of innovations in gender andeducation that exists in South Asia.These policy lessons need then to bemainstreamed, so that they permeate allaspects of educational policy andimplementation.

Implementation of gender equitablepolicy needs to move beyond ‘targeting’women and girls, to thinkingsystematically about the linkagesbetween different sub-sectors ofeducation, and developing measures ofprogress that move beyond quantitativeoutcomes captured at different points.Some of these are suggested in thediscussion on women’s empowermentabove – more work needs to be done

with these approaches to evaluation andmonitoring at sub-national and sub-district levels. While increasing genderbalance in staff should remain a keygoal, efforts to look into themanagement systems and the extent towhich they allow women to acteffectively, unconstrained by genderstereotypes, and responsive to women’sgender-specific constraints, areimportant.

Measures to improve the functioning ofgender mainstreaming units areimportant. Their limitations in the pastare not a reason to discontinue them.There is still a huge task ahead in termsof making gender-awareness a featureacross systems. However, providingthese units with adequate resources aswell as important roles in oversight ofpolicies and implementation measures

5

27


is critical. Analysis that is utilized tosupport ‘gender mainstreaming’ effortsneeds to become much sharper(Subrahmanian, 2004b), and betterlinked to a wider understanding ofinstitutional strengths and limitations.The Commonwealth Secretariatdeveloped a Gender Management Systemthat highlighted the need for appropriateinstitutional arrangements to be put inplace to strengthen gendermainstreaming:

A lead agency for spearheadingchange, e.g. national women’smachinery

A management team that engageswith representatives of differentdepartments as well as members ofcivil society to coordinate theimplementation strategy

A network of gender focal pointsacross departments

An inter-ministerial steeringcommittee to oversee links betweendifferent ministries

A Parliamentary Gender Caucus madeup of committed parliamentarians whocan lobby in the formal political arena

Civil society interactions with thismachinery to ensure two-way flows ofinfluence and information.(Source: Kabeer, 2003)

Three levers that the GMS suggests areimportant to emphasize: awareness,communications and incentives.

However, underlying all of this is theneed to locate ‘mainstreaming’ withinthe wider sphere of work and influencethat goes under the rubric of ‘governancereform’. Unless gender is made animplicit aspect of efforts to addressadministrative reform, and unlessadministrative reform is analysed fromthe perspective of the impacts on genderissues, there is likely to be littleprogress. Gender mainstreaming willcontinue to be seen as an add-on, not afundamental part of systems change.

At the international level too there isclearly much that remains to be done.While in many contexts donors have keptthe issue of gender alive, the rhetoricmay not be matched by systems toensure that their actions and allocationsare gender-aware. The 2005 goal andthe degree to which they are off-track inmany parts of the world provides acatalyst for rethinking existingapproaches, and shifting them fromtargeted, parity-oriented measures tomore systemic change for theachievement of gender equality ineducation, through the pathway ofempowerment.

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Alsop, R. and Heinsohn, N. (2005). Measuring Empowerment in Practice: StructuringAnalysis and Framing Indicators. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3510.February.

Bamberger, M., Blackden, M., Fort, L. and Manoukian, V. (2002). Gender. In Jeni Klugman(ed.) A Source Book for Poverty Reduction Strategies, Volume 1, Chapter 10. Washington DC:The World Bank.

Bennell, P. (2003). Public–Private Partnerships in Basic Education in South Asia. Case Study4. Paper prepared for AKDN-DFID Seminar on Public Private Partnerships for the Delivery ofBasic Education Services to the Poor. London, 25 September 2003.

Christian Aid (2001). Ignoring the Experts. Poor people’s exclusion from poverty reductionstrategies. Christian Aid policy briefing 10.01. London: Christian Aid.

Commonwealth Secretariat (2005). Promising Practices and Implications for Scaling Up Girls’Education. UN Girls’ Education Initiative: Report of a South Asia Workshop held inChandigarh, India, 20–22 September 2004.

Diop, N. (2004). Gender Budgeting in Education Ministries. The Case Study of the RwandaMinistry of Education. Paper presented at the Beyond Access Workshop, April 28–29, 2004.London: Institute of Education; Oxford: OXFAM.

REFERENCES

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Jha, J. and Subrahmanian, R. (2006). Secondary Education in the Indian State of UttarPradesh: Gender dimensions of state policy and practice. In S. Hassim and S. Razavi (eds)Gender and Social Policy in a Developing Country Context: Mothers, Workers and Citizens.Palgrave, forthcoming.

Kabeer, N. (2003). Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. London: The Commonwealth Secretariat.

Kanji, N. and Salway, S. (2000). Promoting Equality Between Women and Men. SID SCOPEPaper No. 2. London: Social Development Department, Department for InternationalDevelopment.

Longwe, S. (1997). The evaporation of gender policies in the patriarchal cooking pot.Development in Practice, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 148–156.

OECD-DAC (1999). Reaching the Goals in the S-21: Gender Equality and Education.Volume I. Paris: Development Aid Committee, Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment.

OECD-DAC (2002). Gender Equality in Sector Wide Approaches. A Reference Guide.Development Assistance Committee, Organization for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment.

Rodenberg, B. (2002). Integrating Gender Into Poverty Reduction Strategies:From the Declaration of Intent to Development Policy in Practice? Briefing Paper 2/2002.Bonn: German Development Institute.

Rose, P. (2003). Communities, gender and education: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa.Background Paper, Global Monitoring Report 2003/04. Paris: UNESCO.

Rose, P. (2004). The role of political will and capacity in addressing the gender MDG.Background paper for DFID’s Girls’ Education Strategy.

Sarraf, F. (2003). Gender-Responsive Government Budgeting. IMF Working Paper.Washington DC: International Monetary Fund.

Sibbons, M. et al. (2000). Mainstreaming Gender Through Sector-wide Approaches inEducation. Synthesis Report. Report for DFID, ODI and Cambridge Education Consultants.

Subrahmanian, R. (2003). Gender Equality in Education: Definitions and Measurements.Background paper for GMR 2003/04 Gender and Education: The Leap to Equality. Paris:UNESCO.

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Subrahmanian, R. (2004a). The Politics of Resourcing Education: A Review of New AidModalities from a Gender Perspective. Paper presented at ‘Beyond Access’ Workshop, 28April 2004, held at OXFAM, Oxford.

Subrahmanian, R. (2004b). Making Sense of Gender in Shifting Institutional Contexts: Somereflections on gender mainstreaming. IDS Bulletin. Brighton, Sussex: Institute ofDevelopment Studies.

Subrahmanian, R. (2005a). ‘Scaling Up’ Good Practices in Girls’ Education. Publication forUNGEI. Paris: UNESCO.

Subrahmanian, R. (2005b). Gender Equality in Education: Definitions and Measurements. InInternational Journal of Educational Development, 25:4, pp.395–407, July.

Whitehead, A. and Lockwood, M. (1999). Gender in the World Bank’s Poverty Assessments:Six Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa. Discussion Paper 99. Geneva: UNRISD.

Wilson, D. (2003). Human Rights: Promoting gender equality in and through education.Background Paper, Global Monitoring Report 2003/04. Paris: UNESCO.

Zuckerman, E. (2001). Engendering Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). Why itReduces Poverty and the Rwanda Case. WIDER Development Conference on Debt Relief.Helsinki, August 17–18, 2001.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ramya Subrahmanian is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies,University of Sussex. Her research and other work focuses on issues of gender anddevelopment, and on elementary education and social policy. She is the co-editorwith Naila Kabeer of Institutions, Relations and Outcomes: Framework and Tools forGender-Aware Planning (Zed Books, 2000; Kali for Women, 1999) and with NailaKabeer and Geetha B Nambissan of Child Labour and the Right to Education in SouthAsia. Needs versus Rights? (Sage Publications, 2003).

Published by

United Nations Children’s FundRegional Office for South AsiaP. O. Box 5815Lekhnath MargKathmandu, Nepal

Telephone: 977-1-4417082Facsmile: 977-1-4418466 / 4419479www.unicef.org

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mainstreaming gender for better girls' education: policy and