Ensuring equitable education, access: Women have key role to play — Varsity don

Female’s active involvement in educational workers unions can significantly contribute to fostering partnerships in higher education and analogous institutions, leading to more inclusive, equitable and sustainable educational outcomes, the Dean of Faculty of Applied Sciences at the Accra Technical University, Prof. Alice Constance Mensah, has said.

Consequently, she said women, particularly TEWU women, had a big task in ensuring that education became equitable, accessible and of high quality to all manner of people, which would bring about the needed development and advancement that everyone was expecting.

Prof. Mensah said this at the Eighth Quadrennial Delegates Conference of TEWU Women’s Committee on the theme “Fostering partnership for equitable education delivery In Ghana: The role of TEWU women” at the Pentecost Convention Centre at Gomoa Fetteh in the Central Region.

Advocate

The role of TEWU women in fostering partnerships in higher education, she said, could be multifaceted. For instance, she said female members could advocate for policies and initiatives that promoted gender equality within higher educational institutions, ensure equal opportunities for women in leadership positions, promote decision-making processes and ensure access to resources.

Women in educational worker unions, she added, could actively engage in networking with other stakeholders, including government agencies, non-profit organisations and international partners, to foster collaborative partnerships aimed at improving higher education delivery.

“Female members can participate in capacity-building programmes to enhance their leadership and negotiation skills, enabling them to effectively represent their union in partnership discussions and contribute meaningfully to decision-making processes,” she said.

Tasks

The National Chairperson of the TEWU Women's Committee, Rebecca Ama Yankson, said the organisation recognised the vital role that TEWU women played in promoting equitable education delivery in the country.

That, she said, could be seen in its commitment to fostering partnerships that would drive positive change in this crucial aspect of society. “We aim to do this by working together with all our sister teacher unions and various national women’s committees who also have similar objectives as ours,” she said.