Announcing the Jackie Kirk Commemorative Competition 2009 Winners

In August 2009, to mark a year since the death of Dr. Jacqueline (Jackie) Kirk, INEE launched a Commemorative Competition to honour the work Jackie did with INEE as convener of the Gender Task Team, and leading gender and education in emergencies experts, practitioners and advocates (read the Call for Papers here).

The competition sought to identify academic papers and practitioner-authored case studies that documented innovative gender-responsive research, policy or practice in the field of education in emergencies. INEE had a great response from members and other partners, and reached a shortlist of seven papers, from which a selection committee made up of gender specialists from the INEE Gender Task Team and the INEE Secretariat has selected the following:

The Two Winners

Effects of teacher training for refugee women in West Africa: Fostering agents of change in schools and society? By Susan Shepler and Sharyn Routh

Effects of teacher training for refugee women in West Africa: Fostering agents of change in schools and society, draws data from an innovative research project tracing former refugee teachers who received teacher training from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) over a seventeen year long education program in refugee camps in Guinea (1991-2008). The research traced repatriated refugee teachers who had returned to their homes in Sierra Leone and Liberia in an effort to determine the effects of the training they received —particularly whether they were still working as teachers in their post-repatriation lives, or whether they had made use of their training in other ways. Although the research in question focused on all of the former IRC teachers who the research team could trace, the present paper is about the female teachers and their specific situations. Focusing on the women’s responses yields gender-specific conclusions about structural barriers to institutional and societal change in conflict and post-conflict settings.

Education and Emergency: Women in post-2001 Afghanistan By Eva Sajoo

This paper examines the potential significance of investing in female education in the fragile and frequently violent context of post-invasion Afghanistan.  Recent and chronic challenges to female education are examined through the lens of transitional priorities.  The economic and social benefits promised by human capital theory and their limitations in Afghanistan are considered, alongside arguments emerging from Amartya Sen’s capability approach. Beyond economics and politics however, the criterion of basic human capabilities provides a measure of the nature of the society being built – in terms of the ethical demand that no group be denied the capacity to exercise agency. In sum, this paper contends that prioritizing female access to education in transitional Afghanistan, for all the pragmatic and attitudinal obstacles, is a critical choice for the maturation of civic and economic development.

The Five Finalists

Non-Formal Education and Its Impact on Gender Disparities in Primary Education in Afghanistan By Laura Kavazanjian

There are several reasons why the current primary school enrollment rate for girls in Afghanistan is so low, including both supply-side and demand-side factors. Other countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, India and Ethiopia face similar barriers in access to education for girls, but have implemented strategies to reduce these barriers. Many of these strategies fall within the framework of non-formal education. This paper lays out problems on access to primary education for girls in Afghanistan. It explains why access to primary education for girls is of utmost importance, covering the factors that lead to this access issue. It reviews related literature on non-formal education, describing both the benefits and drawbacks of such programs and the impact these programs have on primary enrollment rates in the countries mentioned above. The paper concludes by explaining the implications these findings have on policy in Afghanistan.

Education for Ensuring Gender Equality in Emergency: Exploring Possibilities By Sampa Kundu (Chakraborty)

The author emphasizes that to ensure gender equality in emergencies, quality education should include emergency preparedness, life-skills training, and small–scale entrepreneurship. “We should re-frame our education patterns both for boys and girls to keep them ready for any emergencies and crisis period [situations].”

The Implications of Female Teachers Shortage on Girls’ Education: Exploring Policy Options for Southern Sudan By Hannah Poole

This paper outlines the current education situation in Southern Sudan, articulating the low gender parity in schools and emphasizes the importance of girls’ education for the building of a strong nation. The paper, using evidence-based research, confirms the strong positive impact female teachers have on improving girls’ attendance and achievement in schools, and makes the case that Southern Sudan should consider policies for increasing the number of female teachers as a tool to improve girls’ educational outcomes. Female teachers act as role models for students as well as improve the safety of the school environment for girls. Policies should address female teacher shortage through recruitment strategies that speak to the particular needs and concerns of female teachers.

Emergency Education: A Perspective on Iraqi Children in Jordan By Samia Qumri

This paper highlights the challenges Iraqi children face in schools in Jordan. Some Iraqi parents, conscious of their precarious legal position in Jordan and fearful of being deported back to Iraq, have been slow to register their children in government-run schools. Recommendations to improve education for children refugees in Jordan include raising awareness among teachers, students and staff to avoid marginalization of children refugees and ensuring education for vulnerable groups who are unable to access education especially children from IDPs and refugees from neighbouring countries.

Educating Girls and Empowering Women: Gender and Post-Conflict Educational Reform in Afghanistan By Jamie E. Vinson

Increasing access to school for girls is an important first step in making a society more equitable; however, Educating Girls and Empowering Women: Gender and Post-Conflict Educational Reform in Afghanistan seeks to go beyond access alone to explore the role of education in actually improving the status of girls and women in the war-torn nation of Afghanistan. It asks, and begins to answer, the question: how can education foster gender equity and promote women’s empowerment in Afghan society? Towards this end, this paper first briefly highlights the opportunities that are theoretically inherent in post-conflict education. It then presents an overview of the historical and current state of women and girls’ rights and educational opportunities in Afghanistan before moving on to Sierra Leone as a concrete case study of a post-conflict country where a very similar research question has been asked. The Sierra Leone study holds several relevant considerations for policymakers in Afghanistan that, along with insights drawn from in-country analysis, may help inform Afghanistan’s approach to educating its girls and women.

The Selection Committee

INEE would like to thank the selection committee, made up of: Allison Anderson (INEE Secretariat), Susan Gollifer (Independent, member of the INEE Gender Task Team), Marian Hodgkin (INEE Secretariat), Tzvetomira Laub (INEE Secretariat), Elizabeth Sweet (INEE Secretariat) and Rebecca Winthrop (Brookings Institution, member of the INEE Gender Task Team).

Pending permission from the authors, some case studies may be developed from the final papers for use in the upcoming Gender Pocket Guide, which is currently being developed by INEE and the IASC Education Cluster with technical support from a GenCap secondment. INEE thanks all those who submitted papers, and hopes to be able to organize a similar competition in 2010, so stay tuned for further opportunities to continue the work that Jackie pioneered with INEE.

You can read more information about the work of the Gender Task Team here. The Gender Task Team is open to any INEE member interested in working towards gender equality in and through education in emergencies through collaborative advocacy, tool development and research, simply email {encode="network@ineesite.org" title="network@ineesite.org"} for more information.