So somehow I became a ‘gender equality expert’. For a Singaporean, I know well that gender equality is not a commonly discussed topic in the public domain. There is no suppression of open discussion on this, it is just not a popular topic for the everyday layperson at lunch or dinner time. I had to very rapidly familiarize myself with terminologies like gender equality, gender responsiveness, and other related UN defined terms like parity, equity, etc. Well, that did generate some anxiety for this new ‘expert’....(what expert again? Oh well). I am glad my official designation was Associate Programme Specialist, that sounds less daunting!
This whole pilot project had 3 phases and when I started work in Bangkok Office, I was plunged straight into the middle of phase 1, a research study on current status of gender responsiveness in teacher education in 5 member states (Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan). The research study comprised of 6 data collection tools (a mixed of qualitative and quantitative methods, all translated into the respective countries’ national languages). One of the biggest challenge was to help each country’s designated national expert, education ministry officials and participating teacher education faculty members to make sense of the research tools, and how to analyse and interpret data and reporting.
The support work took me to the 5 countries to come face-to-face with the research team, ministry officials and teacher educators. I had to constantly remind myself that my professional identity was no longer a Singaporean education officer but a representative of the Section for Educational Innovation and Skills Development (EISD), UNESCO Bangkok Office. I had to remember all the key policy goals, policy actions and definitions in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4, or commonly called EDUCATION 2030 - Goal 4c (Teacher Education). For someone who was never good with memorising text, this was daunting! (Well I couldn’t memorise well enough to earn a good grade for my O level literature when I was way younger..so with age and the need for reading glasses, this was tougher!). The sessions with the respective country teams were not mere presentation of the PPT but the very long Q&A segment. Despite the daunting challenge, a very valuable learning I got from these in-country support training sessions were that the same tools were interpreted very differently. It almost became impossible to preempt the type of clarification questions the teams would ask from country to country. This learning and insight became very useful when I subsequently taught curriculum and assessment design in NIE to pre- and in-service teachers. I see parallels, where a syllabus document can be interpreted in different ways by art teachers in schools. The same assessment rubrics, because of the way the text are phrased, can open up for diverse interpretation too. I shall share 2 priceless new insight and learning I got in 2 countries, namely Uzbekistan and Myanmar.
Gender Equality Study National Training in Tashkent, Uzbekistan
After some prolonged chaotic and unruly queuing situation for Uzbekistan Airways check-in counters at the Suvarnabhumi Airport, we (my UNESCO Bangkok colleague and myself) finally arrived in Tashkent, the capital city, at about -4 degrees C in early February. We had breakfast at the hotel before meeting the programme officers at UNESCO Tashkent Office (...and that's when I first ate horse sausage...without knowing it)!
Pre-Training Meeting
The first day was great productivity! We had a good working discussion amongst the UNESCO officers on how the whole training will proceed and we clarified various terms of reference. The UNESCO Tashkent national officers Mr. Bakhtiyor Namazov and Mr. Abdul Ghani were wonderful to work with and they were great help for us, total strangers in a Central Asian republic!
The next day we met the 3 Uzbek Team leaders (the Research Steering Team), comprising a high ranking Uzbek MOE official, an education research and training expert and a teacher educator. We had to rely on Bakhtiyor and Abdul Ghani to be our interpreters. The 3 experts (with their note-taker) asked important questions and we were able to clarify any doubts, so that they could return to office the same day to fine-tune their preparation for the training the next day.
Training of Teacher Educators as Research Working Team
The Training session was opened by the Deputy Minister and UNESCO Tashkent Office Chief. I shall jump straight to the Q&A segment (the most nerve-wrecking part).
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| Myself (left), the very skilled interpreter from culture ministry, Mrs Hinds from UNESCO Bangkok, and one of the teacher educators. |
'Gender Equality is a western idea. We are not the west. We are traditional. How is this relevant?'
'Men are always stronger? Women cannot do the same farm work as men'
(Note: Uzbekistan is also a Muslim republic after separating from the former Soviet Union (now Russian Federation. Uzbekistan is essentially an agrarian economy)
Ok, we tried everything. We started by explaining to them that it is not about feminism, and not about women taking power. It is about giving due opportunity without the biased consideration and restriction of gender. I also quoted the then recent example of Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian mathematician who was the only woman ever to win a Fields Medal, the most prestigious honor in mathematics. The same grim faces remained.. very stern, unconvinced. The approximately 10 seconds silence seemed to last FOREVER.
Then an idea came to my mind. I must thank the fact that I was born and raised in a multi-racial and multi-religion country. The awareness of a traditional family hierarchy structure has helped me very quickly find a common point that I believed could connect with the unconvinced and increasingly disengaged participants. I needed to quickly posit ourselves as 'we are with you, NOT we know better than you'. So I quickly brought up 2 points. I wanted to appeal to their AFFECT rather than COGNITIVE domain:
1) If the one denied an opportunity because of gender is your family
2) Gender equality means meaningful partnership for the good, even in domestic situation
1) If the one denied an opportunity because of gender is your family
I asked the participants 3 questions (I believe pertinent questions can provoke deep thoughts):
How many of you have a daughter or a niece?
Imagine this, if one day your daughter came home and told you that she topped the mathematics scores in the school but she was not sent to the national mathematics competition and a boy with a second placing in the school was sent instead.
How would you feel? What would you have wanted the school to do?
There was silence, and several male participants looked away from my eyes (Many were staring hard at me earlier). I believe something has sunk in, and I did not need any response!
2) Gender equality means meaningful partnership for the good, even in domestic situation
Then I went on to explain that no one ever denied that men are stronger physically (leveraging on one of the contesting point raised earlier), and that women cannot replace men in the farm. But since the children are at home with the mother or grandmaother, then the female must be in charge at home while the men are out in the fields (leveraging on my understanding of Old Testament female role models). They are the 'co-leaders' in a family. And I explained that 'co-leader' means 'equal role models'. The women in the homes must role model values and they are the ones essentially build values in the children so they are also a kind of leader - moral leader.
Several male participants nodded their heads.
I believe we finally struck a chord with them. Then I decided to lighten the mood by making a joke: "When it comes to gender equality, 1 thing is always true. Smoking does the same harm to both males and females". The minority female participants giggled! Ok, I had to stop right there before I ruin the situation by offending the male smokers further!
What really encouraged us was that several of the male participants came forward when the session ended for lunch, and 2 of them thanked us for the explanation, saying that it has helped them understand better. I must admit that when the 2 of them wanted to speak with us through the interpreter, I was a bit nervous. I could only breathe normally when they showed their appreciation of the clarification! And they wanted a photo with us! Thank God they did not keep their grim faces!
After all, equality is really about building bridges that did not exist before, and that bridge-building begins with understanding =)
Gender Equality Study National Training in Yangon, Myanmar
In the training in Yangon, we did not meet with resistance. What really was heartening was that all the participants were so engaged! I had to tell myself off for having a biased notion that Myanmar teacher educators are not open-minded. Perhaps the previous experience had tainted my lens. But I am so thankful that the Myanmar participants really humbled me!
They were extremely serious, super meticulous, and would leave no stone un-turned! When they first emailed us their proposed training programme, we were shocked that they proposed a 5-day training rather than the 2- or 3-day training proposed by the other countries. When I was there, I understood why it needed 5 days! They verified almost every detail in the research tools to ensure that they had the necessary clarity to do their data collection and analysis well. Lunch time was 1 hour but they all returned to the training room after 40 minutes. The UNESCO Yangon Office officers and myself had to gobble our lunch to rush back to the room! The training was supposed to end at 5 each day. They were still asking questions and presenting at 4:55PM! For a couple of the 5 days we had gone over time. No one was looking at their watches, many did not have their phones on the table, and no one showed impatience!
I must say I have the utmost respect for the Myanmar teacher educators. They were sincere, eager to participate and learn and really took the research seriously. In the end, when Yangon Office sent the draft report to us for review, it was the most detailed one! Kudos to Myanmar teacher educators! There is much to learn from the spirit of these educators! Their passion and professionalism is impeccable.
The project when on into Phase 2 and we had more meetings and trainings, in Bangkok, Hanoi and Shanghai. I have included links of 2 of the subsequent meetings:
https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/regional-meeting-gender-assessment-teacher-education-asia
https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-gender-assessment-platform-teacher-education-discussed-asia-pacific-partners-1
