Early Childhood Educators as a Pathway towards Gender Equality: Findings from the Philippines

• In Event: Teachers, teaching, and pedagogies in early childhood education

Proposal

While there are global and national policies that mandate the equal treatment of girls and boys in the classroom, many early childhood education (ECE) teachers have yet to have the opportunity to learn about how gender impacts their day to day relations with students. ECE teachers provide a valuable starting point for promoting gender equality, as they interact with and can impact children during their most formative years, they can and should be engaged at the forefront against gender inequality and discrimination. Ensuring that ECE teachers are able to foster gender equality in the classroom is key in securing the promises of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and safeguarding the best interest of the children.

In the Philippines, Save the Children (SC) developed the Gender Equality Toolkit (GET) to strengthen the capacity of ECE teachers to reflect on their own biases related to gender, understand the impact these biases can have on children’s learning, and break the cycle of discrimination. It encourages the use of gender transformative strategies in daily programming to enable all children to reach their highest potential and establish equal rights, regardless of gender. With this training, SC is supporting the foundation for gender equality in school starting from the early year as a contribution towards advancing gender equality in society in the Philippines. The involvement with national government agencies and academic institutions from the design stage of this project has paved the way for their active participation. It has also highlighted the importance of continued government commitment and coordinated action in order for teachers to receive the professional development they need. One of the results of the project was the joint development of strategies to continue to strengthen the sense of collective responsibility and commitment to all children.

The GET was tested with 21 ECE teachers in urban cities in National Capital Region and selected rural municipalities in South Central Mindanao, Philippines. Results of the pilot showed gains in knowledge transfer in both areas, particularly among ECD teachers in rural areas. Teachers registered biggest positive attitude changes towards the following beliefs: (1) Girls can be doctors when they grow up; (2) Boys are as good as girls at math; (3) Boys can play with dolls; (4) Girls can shout and jump around; and (5) Teachers comfort boys and girls in a similar manner when they are upset. Observations showed classroom resources and teacher practices improved and were sustained in urban and rural areas after a preliminary three-day training and the follow-up session. For instance, teachers showed consistent improvements in the following practices: (1) Teacher uses gender-neutral examples in class, (2) Teacher/facilitator groups the students using other criteria than gender, and (3) Teacher/facilitator makes attempts to offset the effects of stereotyping that may be present in existing resources. Such encouraging results are hoped to be replicated in the planned pilot tests in Egypt and Indonesia using adapted GETs. A guidance document was developed to support their adaptation of the content to the particular needs, resources, and capacity available in other contexts.

To respond to the limited professional development opportunities of ECE teachers in the context of COVID-19, the Gender Equality Toolkit has been adapted to an online course. It has synchronous and asynchronous sessions to consider the limited internet connectivity and work load of ECE teachers who are required to shift and adapt to remote learning for the first time. Results of the two delivery modalities (i.e. face-to-face and online) and lessons learned will be shared in this paper.

Authors

• Mariel Joy Sampang, Save the Children

• Pamela Mendoza Yamashiro, Save the Children

• Cassandra Scarpino, ChildFund International