Working in Partnership to address gender inequality in education: Lessons from VSO Ghana and VSO Ethiopia
| Authors | Type | Stream | Full Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dora Amoah Bentil, Wendwossen Kebede, Polly Kirby, Purna Kumar Shrestha | Open call | Quality |  en |
Aim of Research
The aim of this paper is to share VSO’s experience and learning from working in partnership with key stakeholders in supporting increased gender equality in education through a variety of interventions (volunteering, capacity building, training, sharing and learning, research and advocacy, small grants etc.), using specific examples from our work in Ghana and Ethiopia. VSO has a long history of working in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) at different levels of the Education system, from influencing policy at national level to addressing barriers to quality at school and community level in both Ethiopia and Ghana.
The paper illustrates how VSO has adopted a holistic approach for gendered education programming, with opportunities for sharing learning and influencing policy and practice horizontally at local level across schools, communities and districts and vertically within the different education systems. This work to support improved gender equality in education has evolved and strengthened over the last two years, as a result of both countries’ involvement in conducting a baseline for our DFID reporting, on the quality of education experienced by girls.
The authors explain how the key issues raised through focus group discussions with girls, boys, parents, teachers, head teachers, teacher training institutions and local government education authorities during the baseline survey helped validate VSO’s four strategic overlapping areas of intervention in the education sector; teaching and learning, community engagement, education management and advocacy.
Participants or Sample Strategy
The participants of this study were the primary stakeholders of VSO’s Education programmes i.e. girls, boys, teachers, parents, head teachers, government education authorities and teacher trainers. The baseline data on the quality of education experienced by girls was collected two years ago and new data has been collected over last three months in order to capture changes and outcomes of the programme.
The participants for both baseline and evaluation study were selected in an inclusive manner so that they represent the views of all stakeholders. The data has been disaggregated by gender and location.
Methodology
The primary data for this paper was collected by using qualitative research methods (focus group discussions, case studies and in-depth interviews) with the primary stakeholders from VSO Ghana and Ethiopia over the last two years. In addition we have captured learning from our internal partnership processes, working collaboratively with our Education partners over the last three months to review progress towards addressing some of the barriers to quality education for girls. Secondary data has been collected from VSO volunteer reports, publications of the Ministries of Education and other external publications.
Limitations
The findings and learning of the paper are based on VSO’s education programmes in Ethiopia and Ghana, which highlight the views and perceptions of primary stakeholders on the quality of education for girls. These findings are context specific and involved a relatively small sample of focus groups therefore, we should be careful not to make generalizations.
Findings and learning
> Holistic approach
The issues of gender equality in education should be addressed holistically. Focusing on what happens only in the school or classroom is not enough. There is the need to consider other community based barriers as well as economic barriers that impedes gender equality in education.
> Community participation
Community barriers are a major contributing factor to gender inequality in education particularly when looking at barriers that prevent girls from going to and remaining in school. A more lasting solution could therefore only be achieved if communities themselves are supported to analyze, plan and implement their own solutions.
> Bringing beneficiary voices to education management
Having direct beneficiaries (pupils) involved in planning, implementing and monitoring process helped to tackle some of the issues being raised by the children in baseline.
> The need for greater collaboration and participation
There is the need for greater collaboration between key stakeholders to tackle the underlying causes of gender inequality in education which will synergize processes at community, school and district levels to achieve better governance, ownership, accountability and management of the school at the same time tackling quality of teaching and learning resulting in improved performance of girls.
