Position Paper National Focus Group on Gender Issues in Education

Abstract

The National Focus Group on Gender Issues in Education started work with genuine appreciation of the fact that, with the setting up of a specific focus group devoted entirely to this issue, gender had been accorded significance in the current curriculum review process. However, there was also discomfort and apprehension. Discomfort that the members of the group were all women. And apprehension that gender concerns could be excluded by other focus groups from their areas of concern to be relegated solely to this group, that once again gender could be marginalized as a “women’s issue”. Fortunately, beginnings do not always foretell the end of the story, specially not if it is a thought-provoking one, which is what we hope the story of gender issues in this curriculum review will turn out be.