Supporting gender-responsive systems

The challenges facing girls permeate many levels of education systems: our approach to system strengthening considers all levels of these systems to raise awareness, build capacity and change gendered behaviours.

At national and regional levels, we work with governments to help them diagnose the systemic barriers to girls’ education and gender equity within their education systems, while at a local level, we work with district and school leaders to identify local barriers to girls learning and challenge discriminatory practices. We then support ministries of education, regional and district education offices, and individual school leaders and teachers with advisory services and technical assistance to respond to the needs identified and to ensure alignment of changes in policy and practice across all aspects of the system.

For example, in Rwanda, under our system reform programme (Building Learning Foundations), we helped the government to update its education policy for 12-year-old girls, indirectly impacting over 800,000 girls across the country.  Meanwhile, our leadership for learning offer specifically builds the capacity of school leaders to diagnose and develop their instructional leadership skills, enabling them to recognise, challenge and avoid teaching which reinforces gender bias and stereotyping, and to build safe environments and support teachers with alternative behaviour management approaches.