Gender and Social Equity in Primary Education: Hierarchies of Access:
Citations
84 citations
Cites background from "Gender and Social Equity in Primary..."
...Where the catalytic approach of the NGO innovative interventions is brought in, there is the possibility of advancing the empowerment of women, but such innovative interventions may put too much of the onus of economic and social change on women themselves (Ramachandran 2002)....
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...…Programme (DPEP) in 42 S. Fennell the 1990s have perversely resulted in a relative pushing-out of girls and marginal groups, creating ‘hierarchies of access’, as they did not take account of local power structures in relation to caste, race and gender in the local community (Ramachandran 2002)....
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Cites background or methods from "Gender and Social Equity in Primary..."
...The creation of an infrastructure of ‘user committees’ in the form of Village Education Committees (VECs) has now become the mainstay of education programmes, and whilst the evidence for their success is variable and largely critical, it is clear that the potential of these committees in pushing for greater accountability and quality needs to be maximized (see Ramachandran 2004a). Criticisms largely pertain to the bureaucratic ways in which these committees have been set up, with significant elite capture of seats reducing the possibility of representation from excluded groups and women; and to the low level of interest by school functionaries in utilizing community help for more than the annual enrolment drive required to get children into school (Subrahmanian, 2000; Subrahmanian, 2003b). In particular, the limited spaces for women’s participation (despite quotas) and the lack of encouragement for women to speak in front of traditional authority figures (village heads, teachers), reduces the positive effect that these committees could have on gender issues at the school level. Token attempts at ‘gender sensitisation’ have yielded little in terms of their contribution to sustainable changes in gender relations. Comparisons with genuine communitycantered processes of empowerment for women, such as Mahila Samakhya’s women’s collectives (or sanghas), reveal the lack of interest in making women’s participation meaningful. In the latter, support for women’s learning at their own pace and embedded in their everyday lives has yielded significant shifts in the ways in which women engage with their communities and the response they are able to therefore gain to their concerns and demands. However, in DPEP there is no mechanism to monitor whether the quota for women within VECs is translating into meaningful participation for women. Ramachandran (2004a) further notes that there are no available guidelines for ensuring the effective participation of women and representatives of other disadvantaged groups in VECs....
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...Ramachandran’s (2003b) work also points to the lack of monitoring and impact assessment mechanisms....
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...In Ramachandran’s (2004a) assessment, the elaborate infrastructure to put in place gender coordinators at states and in DPEP districts has made gender issues visible within the system, and ensured that awareness of gender issues has ‘percolated’ down the system....
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...Several of the core strategies used are summarized by Ramachandran (2003b) in Table 18 below....
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...Ramachandran (1998) identified six externally-aided programmes that had a significant impact on thinking and practice in India’s public education system....
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References
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