Lilongwe, May 30, Mana: Forum for African Women Educationalists Malawi (FAWEMA) Executive Director, Wesley Chabwera says there is need for teachers and school administrators to mainstream gender responsive methodologies in school programmes to improve learning outcomes of boys and girls.

Chabwera said this in Salima on Tuesday, during the opening of a five day Gender Responsive Pedagogy training for education officials organised by FAWEMA.

FAWEMA is, through the Innovations in Health Rights and Development (iHEARD) project the organisation is implementing in conjunction with Ministry of Education, using the gender responsive pedagogy model.

iHEARD is a five year project funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) targeting 3,000,000 adolescent girls and young women aged between 10-24 years in primary and secondary schools to dismantle barriers that affect girls in the realisation of their sexual and reproductive health rights

Chabwera said the pedagogy model is building capacity of teachers and school administrators to ensure that there is gender equality in schools.

“We are working with the Ministry of Education to build capacity of teachers and school administrators to ensure that there is equality in schools as regards management in terms of gender by ensuring that pedagogical processes that teachers employ in the classrooms are gender responsive and taking care of   the needs of boys and girls so that they are equally engaged but also participate in classrooms,” he said.

He said although there is progress in gender equality in schools, evidence shows that girls are lagging behind in terms of school enrolment in upper classes.

“Girls are dropping out in upper classes compared to boys, because of societal and cultural beliefs so we want to ensure that teachers pay attention to the needs of boys and girls to ensure that girls are retained in schools.

“We want teachers to change attitudes and perceptions around gender equality, we want the language they use and materials in classrooms are gender responsive,” he said.

FAWEMA Programmes Manager, Mphatso Kapalamula,  the gender responsive pedagogy training will  impart skills and knowledge to education officials who will in turn train teachers on topics such as  gender responsive teaching resources, gender responsive  lesson planning , gender responsive  language use, among others.

Education Division Manager for Central East Education Division, Billy Chikhwana Banda said some of the gender disparities happening in most schools are largely contributed by teachers and school authorities.

“We have noted that some of the gender issues happening in our schools are because of the teachers themselves. We have noted that some teachers bully or mistreat learners in terms of punishment and use of abusive words to female learners when they fail to answer questions. This is a critical gender gap, coupled with a shortage of resources the learning environment for girls becomes hostile so we want teachers to change their way of  treating the girls in our schools,” he explained.

He appealed to participants to the training to use the training as an opportunity to engage gender issues that affect schools to ensure that the trainings are worth impacting on communities and school authorities to change their mindset.

“With the support we are getting from FAWEMA we are sure that with intense monitoring and supervisions we will address gender gaps. We want the administrators and teachers to change their mindset before they start changing the minds of other stakeholders,” he explained. 

A participant to the training, Loyce Tembo said the skills acquired through the training will help her train more teachers to mainstream gender issues in their programmes.

“We will use the skills gained to train more teachers to be gender sensitive when teaching. Most girls are left behind, because teachers do not create a conducive environment for learning,” she said.

The training has targeted 14 participants who include School Health and Nutrition Coordinators from Lilongwe Rural West, Dowa, Ntchisi, Central East Education Division and Central West Education Division, Primary Education Advisors and FAWEMA volunteers from the three districts.

Mana/scm/pk