Gender | Flexible Learning Strategies

Indigenous girls on a clear path to become leaders in Guatemala

Guatemalan teenager Keyli Paulina Chic is pursuing her dream to study thanks to a UNESCO-Guatemalan governmental project to give indigenous young people a second chance at education. Keyli lives in the Choacorral community in Santa María Chiquimula, Totonicapán, in...

Mobile App Aims to Help End Child Marriage in India’s Bihar

MUMBAI — A mobile phone app is the latest tool for campaigners seeking to end child marriage in India's Bihar state, where nearly two-thirds of girls in some of its rural areas are married before the legal age of 18. The app, Bandhan Tod, was developed by Gender...

Child brides: Why underage girls are marrying in Indonesia

Aulia* was 15 when she was married. There wasn't a lot of choice. She had been dating Arief, a sweet-faced boy from the local garage, and the neighbourhood tongues were in overdrive. "There was all this shaming," Arief recalls. "I hadn't actually kissed her and...

What’s it like to start reading at 60?

What's it like to read your first words at the age of 60? What difference does it make after a lifetime of getting by without reading? If you think about how much written information we consume every hour - going through emails at work or flicking through messages on...

Reframing girls’ education in India

“I used to think – That, so what if I study, I will still just be married off. Because eventually everyone just gets married off. Then here [in school] I learned that marriage is not everything, that I can have a life of my own. I can become anything I want.” — Aarti...

UK: How can teachers encourage more girls to study mathematics?

Last week’s GCSE maths results – the first of the new and more challenging syllabus – show that boys have pulled further ahead of girls; 16.5% of male candidates were awarded at least an A grade this year, compared with 14.7% of female candidates. What does this mean...

Empowering rural women through education

By: DR JAYA SHUKLA September 02, 2017 The right to education is fundamental Human Right. Education is crucial for development of women. Rural women’s access to education and training can have a major impact on their potential to access and benefit from...

‘Cracking the code’ to end gender disparities in STEM

By Justine Sass, UNESCO Girls and women are significantly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions worldwide, a divide rooted in girls’ earliest days of socialization and schooling and one that a groundbreaking...

New UNESCO report sheds light on gender inequality in STEM education

Despite large efforts made over the past decades to narrow the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, major inequalities still persist. Socio-economic, cultural and other obstacles still prevent female learners from completing...

Indonesia: Education key to more women in SE Asia workforce

MANILA - Education is key to growing the participation of Southeast Asian women in the labor force, an Indonesian business leader said Tuesday. The Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment is pushing to extend the stay of girls in school to up to 12 years...

Bangkok: A global call to advance STEM Education for Girls

Director-General Irina Bokova launched the first ever global report on Girls’ Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, “Cracking the Code”, at the UNESCO International Symposium and Policy Forum that opened in Bangkok on 28 August 2017. The...

‘It could be a prosperous future’: Afghan Manitoban raising funds for girls’ education

Mary Omar escaped to Canada from Afghanistan with her two daughters in 1982 after her husband was killed and political instability rocked the region — but she never forgot home. Omar is helping to organize a community potluck fundraiser for Canadian Women 4 Women in...

US: Who’s to Blame for the Gender Gap in STEM? Start With Kindergarten Teachers

The gender gap in STEM starts earlier—much earlier—than you think. According to new research, the disparity between boys' and girls' mathematical abilities actually begins in kindergarten. The study, which was published in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the...

US: Can Grade-Skipping Close the STEM Gender Gap?

Jane Charlton never intended to skip high school. “I was planning on just skipping ninth grade,” says the renowned astrophysicist, who spent her summers taking calculus classes at Carnegie Mellon University. “But when the school year was about to start, the teachers...

Encouraging Girls To Stay In STEM

Growing up, I loved math and science. I loved the challenge of using math equations to solve problems and I loved how these subjects could be applied to things in my everyday life. However, as I prepared to apply for university, I was dissuaded from studying these...

How One STEM Education Startup Is Changing Career Paths For Millennial Women

Dr. Anna Powers is redefining the image of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, building the next generation of innovators, closing the gender pay-gap and cultivating a community of young women who are change-makers. http://www.powerseducation.com/...

Breaking the code: how women in Nigeria are changing the face of tech

The Nigerian tech scene is booming. Last year, Lagos-based startup Andela received $24m (£18.5m) in funding from Mark Zuckerberg. In 2015, financial technology startup Paystack – one of the first Nigerian tech companies to be accepted into renowned California-based...

Gender equality hits the highway in Northern Brazil

Young women, some still girls, await long-haul truck drivers that stop by a gas station in the State of Tocantins, located in the North region of Brazil. Here, impoverished women and girls look to get extra cash in exchange for sex, a phenomenon seen on a daily basis...

Why Aren’t Classrooms Gender Neutral?

There’s been a fair bit of debate recently about the innate abilities of men and women. Most publicly, a memo from a male Google employee led to his dismissal, following his assertion that one of the reasons that there are less women in the company is because of...

Are We Designing Girls Out of Education Technology?

This week, a software engineer at Google was fired for writing a widely-derided internal memo, critiquing the company’s diversity efforts for ignoring the “fact” that women are just biologically different from men. The author of the 10-page memo claimed, among other...

The role of youth in education

his is the 10th blog in a series of collaborations between the Association for the Development of Education in Africa and the Global Partnership for Education On August 12 is International Youth Day. The pressing need to transform the potential of Africa’s large youth...

Cycling to success: A road to empowerment for rural girls in India MORE

Although major strides are being made worldwide to reduce the gender gap in education, there continue to be significant barriers to girls’ education and empowerment—particularly for adolescent girls. In India, a country where dominant patriarchal norms continue to...

5 ways education can help achieve gender equality INFOGRAPHIC

Ensuring quality education for all is central to the achievement of all 17 Global Goals, in particular the goal to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Click here to download social media-friendly versions of this infographic Download infographic...

DRC: Narrowing the gender gap in education: Looking beyond the numerical data

I have always been amazed to find myself being the only woman participating in meetings and workshops in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It’s the largest country in Francophone Africa, with an estimated 77 million people of...

Afghan Family Faces Hardships But Supports Girls’ Education

Family of Beheshta, who got the highest score among girls in university entrance exam, urges others to support girls’ education. Despite facing numerous hardships, an Afghan family has supported their female members to pursue their education and one of them has...

Niger: Education shapes futures – Aishetu’s story

“The only role models to inspire me were my teachers because I had no one else to look up to.” Aishetu Mahmoudu Hama For 23-year-old Aishetu Mahmoudu Hama, attending primary school came with many challenges. She was one of only a handful of students studying in a tiny...

India: Women’s education in rural areas holds the key to family

Shillong, July 24 Meghalaya State Commission for Protection of Child Rights chairperson M Kharkongor today said women's education in rural areas holds the key to address the issue of increasing population. Kharkongor stressed the need to educate rural women on family...

Malala Yousafzai: notes from my Girl Power trip to Nigeria

Three days ago, I returned from my second visit to Nigeria. Nigeria is the richest country in Africa, but it has the highest number of out-of-school girls in the world. When I first visited the country in 2014, the government spent 9% of its budget on education. This...

India: More education, fewer child brides mean healthier children

Over 13 million adolescent girls between 10 and 19 years were married in India in 2011, according to census data, but fewer literate women were married as children or had children early compared to those who were illiterate, according to an analysis by Child Rights...

Malala just asked the acting president of Nigeria to declare a state of emergency for education

Malala Yousafzai has called for a state of emergency for education to be declared in Nigeria. On Monday, the 20-year-old Nobel Prize winner met with the acting president of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to discuss the importance of investing in children’s education in...