Workshop on International Gender Responsive Pedagogy Toolkit in Pretoria
From 28 until 30 August, VVOB South Africa hosted an international workshop on development of an international toolkit for Gender Responsive Pedagogy.
The development of this toolkit was started in May 2017, when participants from Zambia, South Africa and Rwanda met for the first time to develop this international GRP toolkit, that will be contextualised for implementation by different African countries.
International participation
The toolkit is the product of a series of consultations, discussions, and workshops on gender responsive pedagogy. The toolkit was jointly conceptualized and developed by the South African Department of Basic Education (DBE) and Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), by the Ministries of Education in Rwanda and Zambia, Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), Centre of Expertise, library and archives for gender equality and feminism (ROSA), Commission for Gender Equality (CGE), South African Council for Educators (SACE), University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, University of South Africa (UNISA)and VVOB.
Objective
The objective of the toolkit is to create a gender responsive educational environment that is receptive to the creation of equal opportunities and the elimination of gender stereotypes. Key values are: empowerment, quality, collaboration, innovation and learning.
The toolkit will be free for educators to use and while acknowledging many gender-based barriers to education, the toolkit focuses on practical tools that individual teachers can put to immediate use in their classrooms. In addition, it contains key definitions related to gender and education, references to international commitments to gender equality in education, and a list of supplementary online resources and suggested reading materials.
Way forward
The country teams will continue working on the toolkit in their respective countries. In November, a third workshop will take place to revise documents together and to move towards a final document. In 2018, the toolkit will be ready for launch and use.
The workshop was facilitated and funded by VVOB.
More pictures of the workshop can be found here.
Watch this video to see how gender stereotypes are defined between 5 and 7 years of age. Together, let's redraw the balance.
