Professional development of teachers of young children to promote gender equality: VVOB’s experience in South Africa

• In Event: Advancing gender equality in and through Early Childhood Education: Lessons from FAWE, Plan International and VVOB

Proposal

VVOB is committed to gender-transformative programming in its capacity development support of education systems and actors globally. In support of early childhood education specifically, VVOB implemented programs with a focus on gender-transformation in Zambia, Vietnam and South Africa. In this panel discussion, VVOB will talk to their experiences in promoting gender equality in South Africa in particular.

In South Africa, VVOB supported the Department of Basic Education to contextualize the international GRP4ECE toolkit. A pilot intervention was implemented in 2020 and 2021, using the contextualized toolkit in practical workshops with ECD practitioners; in orientation sessions with ECD centre leaders; and in follow-up support to professional learning communities of practitioners. External research showed the materials and approach to be effective in transforming attitudes and practices of ECD practitioners and ECD centre leaders.

Whilst the pilot was still being implemented, the Department of Basic Education already secured funding to scale professional development to promote gender equality to over 4000 practitioners, teachers and their centre and school leaders. The COVID-19 pandemic, and the various lock-down measures that affected schools, teachers and learners, pushed the Department to systemise and implement online and blended approaches to teacher professional development in several ways. The intention to scale up professional development on gender equality was no exception. VVOB supported the Department to develop online, open-access professional development courses and micro-learning modules to promote gender equality in ECE. These are now used in blended professional development trajectories in four provinces, and the resources are accessible to teachers nationwide for self-study.

VVOB’s contribution to this panel discussion will include an overview of the content of the contextualized GRP4ECE toolkit used in South Africa, highlighting the practical online courses. The content is aligned with the South African curriculum and is centred around five aspects of gender-responsive pedagogy: the early childhood learning environment, learning materials (storybooks, play materials and pictures), learning activities, interactions and language use in the classroom, and interactions beyond the classroom (with colleagues, the school community, parents and other caregivers). VVOB will provide more background on how the online courses are currently used with an intent to support scaled professional development in the country. Initial lessons learnt from these current interventions will be shared.

Author

• Hanne Huysmans, VVOB - Education For Development