The ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem can ben­e­fit from gen­der main­stream­ing and gen­der-sen­si­tiv­i­ty train­ing. Gen­der main­stream­ing in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem can be achieved along the mod­el used in re­la­tion to train­ing in gen­der-sen­si­tive po­lit­i­cal and pol­i­cy de­ci­sion-mak­ing from which emerged the cur­rent and first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter of T&T. Such a mod­el will in­clude re-train­ing of ed­u­ca­tion pol­i­cy mak­ers, along with teacher train­ers, in a gen­der-sen­si­tive ap­proach to ed­u­ca­tion, which will then be passed on to teach­ers and their charges. This ac­com­pa­nied by gen­der-sen­si­tive learn­ing ma­te­ri­als de­vel­oped for the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem at all lev­els from pre-school to pol­i­cy mak­ing can help im­pact on and re­verse the trends in gen­der stereo­types. Our ex­pe­ri­ence in T&T sug­gests that more fe­male or more male teach­ers do not nec­es­sar­i­ly in it­self elim­i­nate gen­der stereo­typ­ing. Teach­ers repli­cate and trans- mit gen­der stereo­types, un­less they are ac­tive­ly trained and sen­si­tised dif­fer­ent­ly.

For ex­am­ple, we have not seen less­er num­bers of cas­es of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­cause there are more fe­male teach­ers in the sys­tem; nor be­cause there are more girls to boys achiev­ers in the sys­tem. Teach­ers' ed­u­ca­tion must fo­cus on help­ing teach­ers to un­der­stand how to ap­proach ed­u­ca­tion in a gen­der-sen­si­tive man­ner that ap­pre­ci­ates gen­der-main­stream­ing is­sues and re­quire­ments and process­es. Ed­u­ca­tion is a core agent of so­cial­i­sa­tion and such teacher train­ing is as im­por­tant for pre-school teach­ers as it is for ter­tiary-lev­el ed­u­ca­tors and pol­i­cy mak­ers through­out the sys­tem. Teach­ers must al­so un­der­stand the place of in­for­mal ed­u­ca­tion process­es in so­cial­is­ing chil­dren and teach­ing meth­ods and ap­proach­es should ac­com­mo­date this and in­te­grate them in de­liv­ery of learn­ing. Third­ly, teach­ing ma­te­ri­als should specif­i­cal­ly be de­vel­oped to ad­dress and re­flect such gen­der-sen­si­tiv­i­ty and gen­der-main­stream­ing ap­proach­es as ed­u­ca- tion ma­te­ri­als them­selves in­cor­po­rate in­built stereo­typ­ing of male and fe­male roles as well as in­her­ent dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices.

Schools re­in­force gen­der roles. There is need for a holis­tic re­vi­sion to in­clude how ed­u­ca­tion is de­liv­ered, in­clud­ing con­tent, ed­u­ca­tion ma­te­ri­als and teacher ap­proach­es. Stop­gap and knee-jerk re­spons­es will not work. The Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly T&T, is in a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­plex sit­u­a­tion that in fact re­flects how much gen­der roles are re­in­forced by the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. Teach­ers in the large in the re­gion are fe­males. Many of these fe­males seem to trans­mit still la­tent gen­der stereo­types to their charges, of­ten in­ad­ver­tent­ly. The re­sult is per­pet­u­a­tion of ar­cha­ic gen­der re­la­tions and par­tic­u­lar stereo­typ­i­cal ex­pec­ta­tions by males, for in­stance, of fe­males while tra­di­tion­al fe­male roles are re­in­forced by fe­male teach­ers repli­cat­ing stereo­types. This can ex­plain high lev­els of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, for in­stance, where women re­main in the large the main vic­tims de­spite high lev­els of so­cial and eco­nom­ic ac­com­plish­ments. A con­scious ap­proach to gen­der ed­u­ca­tion, in­clud­ed in teacher re­train­ing, along­side de­vel­op­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als that are more sen­si­tive to gen­der roles can help be­gin the process of re­duc­ing repli­ca­tion of tra­di­tion­al at­ti­tudes of males to fe­males of all ages.

Of course, this must al­so be done in con­junc­tion with the in­for­mal ed­u­ca­tion process­es that so­cialise boys and girls-the fam­i­ly, re­li­gion, en­ter­tain­ment and cul­tur­al en­vi­ron­ments. Un­esco has set up an on­line fo­rum to­wards ob­ser­vance of In­ter­na­tion­al World Teach­ers Day to be cel­e­brat­ed on Oc­to­ber 5 on the theme "Teach­ers for Gen­der Equal­i­ty." The pub­lic can join the on­line fo­rum and post their com­ments. Un­esco's World Teach­ers' Day, held an­nu­al­ly on Oc­to­ber 5, is a day to cel­e­brate the es­sen­tial role of teach­ers in pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion at all lev­els. It al­so com­mem­o­rates the an­niver­sary of the 1966 sig­na­ture of the Un­esco/ILO Rec­om­men­da­tion Con­cern­ing the Sta­tus of Teach­ers. For more in­for­ma­tion, vis­it: www.un­esco.org/new/en/ed­u­ca­tion/themes/ed­u­ca­tion-build­ing-blocks/teacher-ed­u­ca­tion/world-teach­ers-day/

Dr Kris Ram­per­sad is a me­dia, cul­tur­al and lit­er­ary con­sul­tant. She is chair of the T&T Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Un­esco and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions di­rec­tor of the Net­work of NGOs of T&T for the Ad­vance­ment of Women