KARACHI, Sept 27: Speakers at a workshop stressed the need for removing the contents supporting gender inequalities from the primary and secondary school textbooks and addressing other deficiencies in the curricula.

The three-day workshop on "Identifying and developing strategies for addressing gender biases and disparities in primary and secondary education curriculum and textbooks" commenced on Monday. The workshop was organized by the Provincial Institute of Teachers Education and the Sindh Education Foundation in collaboration with the Unesco.

They said that portrayal of gender with respect to characters, professions, pictures and attributions should be reviewed so that girls could be motivated to continue education and learn skills.

Sindh Education Secretary Nadir Ali Markhiani, who was the chief guest at the inaugural session, claimed that the government was making efforts to reduce the gender gap in education sector.

There was no bar on women for participating in the development of society, he said. However, he pointed out that social norms usually upset women. Nadir Ali said that the education department would give due importance to the recommendations of the workshop.

A representative of the Unesco, Hassan Abdi Keynan, said that there had been a lot of agreements and conventions on education, including those for the rights of women and children, but, countries including Pakistan had not been able to ensure gender equality during the last five decades.

He said that the Dakar Convention on education also called for eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005 and achieving gender equality in education by 2015. However, he noted that it was a huge task to be accomplished, particularly in countries with deep-rooted social practices obstructing gender equality in education and job opportunities.

The chairperson of International Relations Department, Karachi University, Khalida Ghous, said that meagre budgetary allocations, improper monitoring, lack of coordination among different organizations, lack of political will and non-conducive social environment were the major factors working against any advancement in ensuring gender equality in education sector.

While stressing the need for a holistic approach to the gender disparities issues, she noted that contradiction tendencies in socio-politico sector had also harmed the cause. Women needed to be empowered inside the assemblies as well, which would ultimately ensure a meaningful development of women.

The managing director of Sindh Education Foundation, Prof Anita Ghulam Ali, said that there had been noticeable changes in textbooks as a result of the efforts made by various groups of civil society. However, she said that the pro-active action followed would prove government's commitment to gender equality.

She said that the gender equity and equality debate grew out of a need to ensure that opportunities were equal for female and male students not only in education, but also in other sectors of society.

"I believe that making gender equity a priority particularly at this time is appropriate because it coincides with the efforts of making curriculum meaningful and educative for all," she added.

The director-general of PITE, Dr Mehboob Ali Sheikh, said that about 30 persons representing the provincial education department and its subsidiaries, educationists from public and private universities, and civil society organization had been selected for the workshop. They would find out the gender biases in prose, poetry and pictures in textbooks, he added.

Dr Munnawar Mirza of Punjab University, in her presentation on "gender disparities in textbooks", stressed the need that textbooks should be written and prepared in a way that positive role of women could be promoted.

There was need of a planned and conscious writing on women with the realization that they were contributing to the economic and social development of the country, she noted.

She also shared the findings of her group's researches pertaining to textbooks carried out about eight years back with the assumptions that textbooks were the most important tools for attitudinal changes in society.

She stated that social studies textbooks had the highest percentage of female authors while the mathematics books had the lowest. As regard to characters in the books, she said that there were 74 per cent male characters, while 26 per cent female characters, while attributions made to female characters were also not powerful.

She recommended that the images about females in books should be modified by stressing their dignity, positive self-concept and equal treatment. Rana Syed of the Unicef, in her presentation on "Accelerating girls' education: challenges and possibilities", called for highest political commitment to education to develop and promote literary culture in the country. She said that a high profile campaign was needed for accelerating education with focus on girls.

She pointed out that restricted movement for girls, shortage of female teachers in schools, and overall illiteracy were some of the challenges in the way of promoting education among females.