Gender responsive pedagogy-an approach to making all children love learning

• In Event: Leaving no child Behind-Ensuring access, equity and inclusion in education programming in East Africa

Proposal

Uganda is a signatory to a number of international commitments on education. Key are the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Education for All, Sustainable Development Goals among others. These among others emphasize the need for non-discrimination against boys and girls, women and men.
The Gender in education sector policy 2016 by Ministry of Education and Sports, which is guided by the National Gender Policy 2007, aims at guiding gender mainstreaming in education and sports. It complements other existing policy initiatives that address barriers to girls and women's education in Uganda. As assessment of its implementation shows that it has improved enrolment of boys and girls, men and women at all levels of education and sports. It is imperative to note that gender gaps still exist in retention, transition, performance and completion at all levels which continue to disadvantage girls and women.
In 2014 for instance, females constituted only 46.9% of total enrolment in secondary schools. Only 34% females compared to 45% males completed senior four, 25.9% females compared to 33.6% males joined senior five. Uganda Certificate Education performance index for females was 39.7% compared to 44.5% for males in 2014. Furthermore, it is worth noting that regional disparities exist with some regions performing far well than others. The unequal outcomes for girls and boys, women and men in education ultimately have implications for the achievement of gender equality and empowerment in society as a whole.
In 2015, UNESCO reported that around 16.7 million girls are out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa while 9.3 million of them will never set foot in a classroom. This situation has worsened with the 80-week school closure, a fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic. This is because after the schools reopened, a new set of challenges emerged in front of the teachers that they were not equipped to handle. One of these was a significant increase in underage pregnancies in girls as young as 11 years old.

New strategies were required to address them. Being an international NGO that supports education systems to reignite intrinsic motivationso that every child, teacher and official is motivated to learn and improve,we adapted our programme design by deliberately focusing on gender responsive pedagogy in the classroom. The aim was to ensure that teachers are deliberate in creating an enabling environment for both girls and boys across primary and secondary including those with special needs to learn effectively through incorporating gender responsive teaching and learning strategies. The result is for them to become lifelong learners who are able to thrive in the world of uncertainty.
This presentation will therefore highlight our learning from implementing gender responsive pedagogy.

Author

• Brenda Akite Otika, Stir Education