Mission to South East Asia (Thailandand Laos) 4 – 13 July 2007

Cheryl Gregory Faye, Head of UNGEI Secretariat

Trip Report

  1. Regional UNGEI Roundtable, “Gender in Education”.Jointly organized by the dynamic UNGEI Regional Advisory Committee, this event was a fine example of the partnership at work. About 80 participants from 12 developing and donor Asian countries[1] and 10 partner organizations[2] took partin the one-day session that started with the launching of an UNGEI joint publication, Towards Equal Opportunities for All: Empowering Girls Through Partnerships in Education[3], which introduces seven good practice case studies from East Asia on programmes addressing the educational needs of girls, particularly those who are marginalized for economic, cultural, social or other reasons. Compelling statements were made by representatives of two NGOs from the Philippines that are active in fighting for the rights of child domestic workers, and whose work is featured in one of the case studies. The UNICEF Regional Education Advisor also made a statement on behalf of the Regional Director.

The Roundtable continued with a panel outlining the issues and strategiesrelated to gender equality in education. Panelists included the Regional Education Advisor for UNESCO, a representative of the Korean Institute for Gender Equality Promotion in Education, a director from the Thailand Ministry of Education and the head of the UNGEI Secretariat. Following a discussion that brought out the diversity of the countries and issues represented at the meeting, Aya Aoki, UNGEI Regional Focal Point, outlined the tasks before the two working groups. One group was charged to identify strategies to ensure education access for marginalized children and the other addressed a gender review of curricula, teaching and learning processes. The two groups reported back in plenary and reached consensus on the identification of promising strategies and tangible partnerships activities at country or regional levels. The session concluded with a renewed commitment on the part of workshop participants to achieving gender equality in a region that has great promise.

  1. Country Visit to Thailandwith Aya Aoki, UNGEI Regional Focal Point.

UNICEF Thailand Country Programme Workshop to conduct a Gender Review of Textbooks: This gathering was one of a long review process, being facilitated by an international consultant, to review all textbooks for public schools with a view to ensure that gender, racial and disability stereotypes are expunged, while bearing in mind the cultural context. Workshop participants took note of the importance of sensitizing policy makers and the media about gender issues.

Briefing with provincial Education authorities and visits to Wat Swangarom and WatSuwankiriwongSchools in PhuketProvince: Phuket province has large migrant and seasonal migrant populations due to its tourism industry; the province is host to an estimated 5 million tourists per year. According to the ESAO Deputy Director, the registered population of the province is about 300,000 while another estimated 300,000 are unregistered migrants. These unregistered populations can also receive social services such as education and health care, and this makes the government planning and administration challenging. In the province, there are 43 child-friendly schools (28 first round and 15 newly introduced).

In the WatSwangaromSchool, CFS initiative started last year and brief teacher training was provided followed by a school self-assessment exercise. Through the school self-assessment, the school found out that the students, parents and community members would like improvements in WES, teachers’ attitude towards students (rudeness, etc.), and sports facilities at school. The school is keeping records of students’ enrolment, attendance, promotion and learning achievements and these are posted in the Director’s room. In this school, girls are generally achieving better and getting promoted to the secondary level. There are a total of 387 children, 188 girls and 199 boys at primary, and a total of 133 children, 63 girls and 70 boys, at the kindergarten on the same school ground. The students’ demography is roughly 65% local Thai population, 25% Morgan[4], and 10% Thai migrants. Both primary school and kindergarten are supported by the Rotary foundation and have high quality facilities including a computer lab. The school director assesses that about half the students come from mid-income families and another half from relatively poor families. The school identifies poor students and helps provide free lunch. Through the CFS initiative and better understanding of child rights, there is now the “Childline 1387” in the area, which is a 24 hour child counseling hotline telephone. Overall, the school seems to be managed well and providing a child-friendly environment for the students. Both the director and the students’ council chair pointed to better understanding of child rights as one of the benefits of CFS.

The visit to WatSuwankiriwongSchool provided us with a contrasting view to the other school, demonstrating a number of challenges that the school and the district are facing. The school has 731 students at primary and lower secondary levels - primary (376 boys, 355 girls) and lower secondary (112 boys and 71 girls). Most of the students come from migrant families and the school deals with unstable student and teacher populations. Due to exposure to the low class tourism, children in the area suffer from drug use and other problems. There are 31 teachers (17 men, 15 women) in the school. The school director describes the quality of school as low, compared to other schools in the town area. He also referred to the potential health hazard to the students of the petrol station next door to the school. CFS initiative started last year and the school introduced activities such as students’ council, child rights club, teachers’ visits to households, and child to child approach to reach out out-of-school children and promote school enrolment and attendance. Brief training on CFS has been provided so far: CFS concept (3 days), child rights (2 days), lifeskills and SMIS, however, the school teachers felt these trainings to be insufficient. The mission also had an impression that the training was not comprehensive and left teachers with superficial understanding of CFS without going into substantial understanding and changes in communication, teaching and learning process and other important areas.

Recommendations/Follow-up/Suggested actions for UNICEF Thailand:

  • Consider providing more substantial (both in terms of length and content) teacher training on CFS to further develop teachers’ understanding and promote child-centered teaching practices and communication skills, particularly for teachers coming from the schools with difficult challenges.
  • While promoting the CFS concept at the national level for wider dissemination, in terms of CFS piloting, review the selection criteria for schools to join the CFS initiative to better support the schools in need (e.g. Wat Suwnakiriwong). CFS may make greater contributions and changes in these schools with low quality rather than in schools such as Wat Sawagarom, which is located in the middle income area and already has other support (Rotary club etc.).
  1. Country Visit to Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic

Briefing on UNICEF Lao PDR Country Programme

The country programme consists of BEGE, Child Survival/Development, Child Protection, HIV/AIDS, WASH, and Communication and is in the first year of the programme cycle.

The BEGE programme has three projects: Sector reform, CFS, and Expanded learning opportunities. The Sector reform project is supporting preparation towards SWAp with AusAid, the World Bank, ADB, EU and other partners to improve fragmented support to the sector. Within this group, UNICEF is a co-chair of the gender working group. The project is also supporting the Mid-Decade Assessment exercise. A MDA draft report is ready, which also serves as a planning document for the FTI (at the initial stage of preparation). The BEGE team reported that the chapter on gender in education in the MDA report has a good analysis. Examples of other partners’ assistance in education include school construction in the northern region (JICA) and school feeding and WASH also in the north (WFP and AusAid). A new law was passed recently without knowledge of most MoE staff and partners which states that the rights to free education for all are no longer guaranteed – this is a concern to UNICEF and other partners.

The CFS project supports capacity building of MoE staff and teacher training for 273 schools in CentralProvince. This is the first year in expanding the CFS initiative and many activities are planned. Training for school directors and community members are planned for August, then another one in January 2008. A baseline survey for CFS is planned for September.

The Expanded Learning Opportunities project supports ECD and transition to primary, as part of the CFS initiative, and transition from primary to secondary education. They are tapping into the LWU’s roles in promoting education and LWU is developing their strategy in promoting girls education.

National Research Institute for Educational Sciences (NRIES)

The role of NRIES is to develop curriculum, textbooks, teachers’ guides and other teaching and learning materials for primary and secondary education, education broadcasting programmes, to conduct educational research, and to gather and disseminate educational information and data. They collaborate closely with the Department of General Education and Department of Teacher Training in the MoE on in-service teacher training and Department of Non-Formal Education on HIV/AIDS prevention. The current textbook development policy was developed in 2005 and a training workshop for the NRIES staff was conducted then. 40 MoE staff received gender in education training in 2006. A curriculum review exercise started in 2005 to review grade 1-5 curriculum and is planned to complete in 2009. The review for grades 1-2 was completed and for grades 3-4 is on-going. In addition to gender, the review plans to include child rights, environment and ethnicity disparity issues. At the initial stage in 2005, a consultant (Shirley Miske) assisted the MoE in developing a framework for curriculum and textbooks review, which we can review and operationalize. Child participation and child centered teaching are being incorporated into the pre-service teacher training while limited training fund is available to introduce these in in-service training. NRIES is also supporting a pilot on teaching ethnic minority languages and finalizing a student learning outcome assessment.

The areas that NRIES requested UNICEF support are as follows.

  1. Refresher training on gender and disparity review of textbooks
  2. Assessment of use of the revised textbooks
  3. Media program (radio and TV) development
  4. In-service and pre-service teacher training (particularly on child participation and child-centered teaching)
  1. Refresher training on gender and disparity review of textbooks. It was recommended at the meeting that the training and review of textbooks will be conducted by a national team with support from an international expert. In Thailand, for example, the review framework was developed by a national team under the guidance of an international consultant to ensure both relevance and quality.
  1. Media program (radio and TV) development on how to address gender issues through teaching practices. NRIES currently has a 30 min. radio broadcasting program (3 times a week) for teachers, which is supported by UNESCO Bangkok. There is also a plan to start a 30 min. TV program (once a week, twice a day). It was discussed to explore private sector support on these activities. Beer Lao is already providing some support to education, but otherwise, NRIES finds it difficult to obtain private sector support.

LWU and the Community development income generating project: LWU, a government organ, has over one million members. In Lao PDR, Constitution Article 47 outlines the equality between men and women, and there are a number of laws promoting the rights of women and children. LWU, in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice, is disseminating and raising awareness on these rights through radio, TV, and seminars. In villages, LWU has counseling centers for women. The Union also works to increase the number of women in decision making positions in the government. The vice president of LWU pointed that illiteracy among women, high infant mortality and fertility rates, and poor infrastructure and social services as some of the countries’ difficult challenges. LWU has been an active partner with UNICEF from the beginning.

In the PakHai village of PakNgum District, we met the micro finance group members, District LWU chief, head of the village women’s union and national front (advisor on micro financing), primary school director and other community members. The micro finance group members utilize funding to either start a new business or expand the business, such as making sticky rice, animal husbandry, organic farming (pineapples, mushrooms), handicrafts making, and bicycle and agriculture equipment repairing. Both men and women can contribute to the micro finance fund, but only women can borrow money. The interest rate to borrow for farming and business activities is 3%, for emergency (with no interest for one month) is 2% and for education is 2%. The return rate has been very good. The profits from the micro financing are directed to management committee member’s labor costs, social welfare of villagers, supplementary fund, and community development purposes. The group members explained that some of the benefits of this project are strengthened solidarity among the villagers, contribution to poverty reduction, education, emergency support (for illness, etc.) for villagers, skills gained among women in accounting and management, and ability for families to support children’s education (due to better economic situations). The group has been making donations to schools to support school facilities and equipment. The project seems to be going very well and is contributing strongly to women’s empowerment, family welfare and community development, including benefits to local schools and children’s education. The mission confirmed that the LWU is already and can be even a stronger partner for promoting education - particularly for girls.

Recommendations/Follow-up/Suggested actions:

  • Obtain the 2005 gender review of curriculum/textbooks framework developed by Shirley Miske, review and help operationalize [BEBG team and Aya]
  • Share the TOR and other materials from Thailand and Viet Nam gender review of curriculum and textbooks with NRIES and MoE [BEBG team]
  • Follow up on the NRIES requests for UNICEF support.
  1. Refresher training on gender and disparity review of textbooks
  2. Assessment of the use of revised textbooks
  3. Media program (radio and TV) development
  4. In-service and pre-service teacher training (particularly on child participation and child-centered teaching)
  • Explore possible private sector partnerships on educational radio and TV programmes by NRIES (Nike? Uniliver?).
  • Share the FTI proposals and gender review recommendations from Georgia, Sierra Leone and Liberia with the BEBG team [Cheryl]
  • FTI status and follow up – find out the lead agency in Lao PDR
  • Review the draft MDA report and provide comments if needed
  1. Conclusions. Overall, the mission was fruitful, and the UNICEF Regional and Country Offices did an excellent job of preparing and accompanying the mission. The joint Commonwealth Secretariat-UNGEI workshop was well received by participants and proved to be a useful advocacy opportunity for influencing the 8WAMM. The country visits were also revelatory, not just for the important work being done by partners at country level, but also to appreciate the varying understanding by the

CGF

30 July 2007

[1] Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam

[2] The Regional UNGEI team is made up of Baha’i, EducationDevelopmentCenter, ILO/IPEC, Plan Asia, UNAIDS, UNESCAP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, World Vision – Aya, pls add the other 3. The group meets on a bimonthly basis.

[3]

[4] An Austronesian ethnic groupwhich maintains a nomadic, sea-based culture