Advocacy centre organises seminar on gender parity in education
One of the key conferences of the United Nations was the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in September 1995. This seminar helped increase global awareness on the issue of women’s rights as vital for global peace and sustainable development.
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The seminar also highlighted many critical thematic areas such as education, science and technology, women in decision making, governance and legal protection.
The Millennium Development Goals 2 and 3, respectively emphasised the need for access to education of girls and gender equality in all sectors of the world economy, including governance and leadership.
Platform for women
As part of its commitment to create a platform to negotiate for gender equality and enhance the progress of women in the areas of education, social, cultural and economic spheres of their lives, the Centre for Legal Advocacy Research Education and Training (CLARET) has been organising seminars to empower women in that respect.
At the fifth seminar held on the theme:“Gender parity at all levels of education: The backbone of gender equality”, a senior Research Fellow at the University of Cape Coast, Dr Akua Britwum, said stereotyping and gendering of women and men were the major causes of gender disparity.
She, therefore, stressed the need to change these mindsets and inculcate in both girls and boys the need to develop their potentials at the level of informal education which is given to them in the home while they are growing up in order to progressively revive the situation.
She also said access to education for girls and women was essential to attain gender equality.
Quality education
The Second Lady, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur, stressed that focusing solely on access to education for girls undervalued the importance of quality education, adding that it could lead to the false conclusion that gender parity was achieved without paying attention to the quality and relevance of the outcome.
She said gender-based interventions needed to emphasise strategies aimed at attaining gender equality, reflecting on the policies and practices of students, teachers and the community.
“Research and practice in relation to gender equality need to take a more holistic approach to look at education from early childhood through adult education”, she stated.
In her address, the Executive Director of CLARET, Mrs Jennifer Owusu, said the role of women in politics and public office was one of the current governance issues because of the critical role and contribution of women to the governance process.
She added that Ghana had achieved gender equality at the primary school level.
The Gender Parity Index indicated that Ghana had risen from 0.93 per cent in 2003 to 0.99 per cent in 2012/ 2013 for the primary level and from 0.88 per cent to 0.93 per cent at the junior high school level.
However, Mrs Owusu added that there was the need for improvement to ensure that the country attained MDGs 2 and 3.
The South African High Commissioner to Ghana, Madam Jeantte T. Ndhlovu, who chaired the programme, stressed the need to consider quality education in advocating access to education for girls and women.
She called for an enabling and clean environment for students to positively influence the teaching and learning process.
Madam Ndhlovu added that discussions and outcomes of seminars and workshops on gender issues needed to be implemented at the global and national level.