a leader of a women's collective in Bihar talks about education and empowerment
What are the three things that come to mind when you think of Gender and Education? Girls should go to school? Play games and learn maths and science like boys do? There should be lots of pictures of girls in school textbooks? Judo classes for girls in school?
Most people would think a course on Gender and Education would cover these issues.
However, after Nirantar's attending 10-day course, this is what some participants had to say -
a session on gender and sexual norms
'In today's context, I feel that if people talk about women's empowerment, education is seen as a tool. But after coming here, we have seen that it is not so simple. There are many issues intertwined in this, which we had the opportunity to understand... For the understanding of gender, education is a starting point.'
'After attending this course, I have realised how gender permeates every aspect of education (gender kis prakaar shiksha mein racha basa hai), and how important it is to understand gender inequality and to work for women. Not only for women, but for all oppressed groups.'
a session on nation and gender
'I have learnt to look at gender and education in different ways. I learnt how you can read language from a different perspective. After considerable reading, especially of women's writing and stories, I have understood what a feminist perspective is.'
Nirantar's Gender and Education Course in Hindi covers a range of areas - adult literacy, sexuality education, curriculum development, textbook writing - building a critical conceptual understanding of gender, sexuality, patriarchy, knowledge and the nation as factors that impact education. The course encourages participants to analyse their own experiences of education, or to engage with other's experiences - through live interviews, biographical writing, fiction, theatre and so on. Further, some sessions focus on analysis of historical and contemporary policies of education, which help read and apply concepts of gender, education and nation in a concrete context. At the end of ten, intensive days of lectures, discussions, group work, interactions with field activists, film screenings and reading, participants are able to move beyond the 'add and stir' approach to understand gender, but see how gender - layered with sexuality, caste, class, religion, history - crucially influences all aspects of education, be it curriculum, pedagogy, policy.
The course is open to students in the social sciences, women's studies, researchers, faculty, as well as mid-level activists in the area of women's rights and/or education.
Some faculty of the previous course
- Uma Chakravarti, noted feminist historian
- Apoorvanand, lecturer in Hindi at Delhi University
- Farah Naqvi, writer, social activist and member of the National Advisory Council
- Samina Mishra, filmmaker
- Members of the Khabar Lahariya team
Click here to read an excerpt of the report on the Gender and Education Course in October 2009
Two readers on Gender and Education in Hindi are available, which include theoretical pieces, as well as fiction, biography and policies. In the context of the dirth of material on gender and education in the Indian context, these books pull together some of the material translated for use in the Gender and Education Course.
* Gender and Education Course 2011: Apply Now!
* Nirantar also offers a shortened and modified version of the Gender and Education Course for field-level activists
