Teach for Gender Equality Project: An input to Gender Sensitive Curriculum in the Philippine Basic Education System

Proceedings of The 3rd International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality

Year: 2023

DOI:

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Teach for Gender Equality Project: An input to Gender Sensitive Curriculum in the Philippine Basic Education System

Amelyn L. Laro, RSW

ABSTRACT: 

The Philippines as a country faced teenage pregnancy as a national problem. In the study conducted by the National Demographic and Health Survey in 2013 one out of every young Filipino women age 15 to 19 is already a mother or pregnant with a first child. This data also implies that teenage pregnancies are often associated with social development issues such as lack of sufficient education and poverty. While the Department of Education (DepEd) tends to be proactive and issued Gender-Responsive Basic Education

(GRBE) Policy in line with its Gender and Development mandate as stipulated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and on the rights of a child among others a growing number of young women were out of school due to teenage pregnancy. The GRBE policy commits to integrate the principles of gender equality and non-discrimination in system of basic education. (Galamgam, et al. 2021).

Despite the presence of this current policy on how to integrate gender education in the basic schools in the country the realities showed that the lack of teachers training on gender and how they will integrate these concepts to the curriculum remains to be a challenge.  Thus, the basis of writing this paper therefore anchors on the review of various gender sensitive curriculum from global to national perspective while developing the project “Teach for Gender Equality”. By extensive literature review, this paper discussed the importance of adapting a relevant gender sensitive curriculum and integration of gender concepts and adapting a sustainable gender education program. The findings of the analysis were considered as important input for the enhancement of basic education sector curriculum in the basic education sector in the Philippines.

keywords: Gender Sensitive Curriculum, Gender Responsive Education, Teenage pregnancy