The spotlight on the GEM Report and the outreach activities rolled out globally after its release give a chance for its theme to shift the education agenda. The 2010 Report on marginalization brought equity into the limelight, for example. But have you ever thought how the themes of the GEM Report are being decided? Continue reading
Help us decide the future themes of the GEM Report
A woman has won the ‘Nobel prize for mathematics’ for the first time
The 2019 Abel Prize, also known as the ‘Nobel prize for mathematics’ was won by Karen Uhlenbeck last Tuesday, the first woman to ever receive the award. The award makes her one of the pioneers for women mathematicians, alongside Maryam Mirzakhani, the Iranian who was the first woman to win another prestigious prize in 2017, the Fields Medal, awarded by the International Mathematical Union.
Dr Uhlenbeck is an American professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin and won for her “pioneering achievements” in various fields of mathematics. In one of her interviews she acknowledged the gender imbalance in her field of research and the barriers she faced to continue with her passion. Of graduate school she said: “It was evident that you wouldn’t get ahead in mathematics if you hang around with women. We were told that we couldn’t do math because we were women”. “Even when I had my Ph.D. for five years,” she said later, “I was still struggling with whether I should become a mathematician. I never saw myself very clearly.” Continue reading
Posted in Equality, Gender, STEM, Uncategorized
Tagged Gender, gender. equality, maths, STEM, target 4.7
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Roxana, a Romanian student on an Erasmus exchange programme, “learned to look beyond stereotypes”
This content comes from our newly released interactive youth version of the 2019 GEM Report.
The EU’s higher education strategy includes a target for at least 20% of graduates to experience part of their study or training abroad. Erasmus is the largest and most prominent student mobility programme in the world. Participants study up to 12 months in another European country, which home institutions recognize towards students’ degrees. Evaluations of the programme suggest a positive effect on employment, career opportunities and personality traits, as well as a substantial influence on participants’ social lives.
Roxana, a student from Romania, studied for a year in Portugal through the Erasmus programme. “One of the biggest challenges was to get out of my comfort zone. One of the things that I learnt is tolerance and how to better understand the past, the future and the behaviour of a nation,” said Roxana. “I learned to look beyond stereotypes. I understood that it is not always about the nationality, but also about the personality. Living in an international community improved my analytical skills, by always trying to understand the reason, before judging. Also, this helped me develop my willing to take risks in my professional and personal life”. Continue reading
George teaches in a double-shift school in a refugee camp in Kenya to increase access to education
This content comes from our newly released interactive youth version of the 2019 GEM Report.
![kenya 1]](https://webarchive.unesco.org/web/20190330230806im_/https://gemreportunesco.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/kenya-1.png?w=372&h=262)
Low and middle income countries hosted about 89% of all refugees in 2017. About 52% of all refugees are under the age of 18. About 40% live in managed camps or collective centres, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
Displacement intensifies the usual pressures on teacher management systems. Coordination of teacher recruitment, compensation and development is often further compromised in fragile contexts where multiple humanitarian and development aid agencies operate under different rules.
George, who spoke at the launch event for the 2019 GEM Report in Nairobi, Kenya, works in a secondary school in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp. In his camp, a ‘two-schools-in-one’ approach was tried out to help make up for the lack of secondary schools. Two sets of students attend, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, each covering the 8 lessons a day as required for the curriculum. Each have their own deputy principle, heads of departments, teachers and different uniform. It has been such a success it has now been copied in three other schools, and the number of students enrolled has gone up.
“The two-schools-in-one was to solve congestion in classes. However, the congestion problem has not been resolved. This is because next year, over 6000 students will be competing for 2500 spaces in the five secondary schools in Kakuma Refugee Camp. More classes need to be constructed. Because of access to education, students acquire skills of peaceful living and conflict resolution, which is important for reconstructing their mother countries.” Continue reading
What does the ‘feminization of migration’ mean for migrant women and their education?
The effects of migration and displacement are usually considered to be the same for men and women. However, this is often not the case. It is important to recognize how gender relations in both origin and host communities influence women’s and men’s experiences as migrants and refugees. This blog reflects on issues related to migration.
New GEM Report analysis on the intersections between gender, education, migration and displacement is being discussed today at a side event in New York during the 63rd session of the Commission of Status of Women with the African Union and the UN Girls 
Education Initiative. It offers a preview of the 2019 Gender Report to be released on July 5 at the G7 Ministerial Meeting in Paris.
Just under half of global international migrants are women. However, looking beyond averages, some countries are major hubs of gender-specific emigration, such as the Philippines for women and Nepal for men. And although this average figure has not changed in decades, women are now increasingly more likely to migrate to take up jobs, rather than to join male family members as dependants. This phenomenon has been termed the feminization of migration. Demand and supply for migrant women’s labour are affected by unequal gender norms in the labour market.
Migration can potentially liberate female migrants from restrictive family control and rigid gender roles. Becoming a breadwinner, not only abroad but also at home by migrating to the city, can enhance a woman’s status within their community back home.
But this opportunity can also be a major challenge. First, their departure can complicate the life and education of the children they leave behind. Second, migrant women can suffer from disadvantage related to class, race or ethnicity that intersect with their immigration status. They can be more vulnerable to sexual and racial abuse, harassment and discrimination at the workplace. Continue reading
Posted in Gender, migrant, migration, Uncategorized
Tagged 2019 gem report, Gender, gender. equality, migrants, migration
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Displacement can exacerbate gender inequality in education
The effects of migration and displacement are usually considered to be the same for men and women. However, this is often not the case. It is important to recognize how gender relations in both origin and host communities influence women’s and men’s experiences as migrants and refugees. This blog reflects on issues related to displacement.
New GEM Report analysis on the intersections between gender, education, migration and displacement is shared today on International Women’s Day and will be discussed at a side event in New York on March 11 during the 63rd session of the Commission of Status of Women with the African Union and the UN Girls Education Initiative. It offers a preview of the 2019 Gender Report to be released on July 5 at the G7 Ministerial Meeting in Paris.
It shows that among refugees, gender gaps in enrolment rates are often worse. In Kenya and Ethiopia only 7 refugee girls are enrolled in primary school for every 10 boys; and only 4 girls are enrolled for every 10 boys at the secondary level. In Mogadishu, Somalia, an analysis of 486 settlements in 17 districts found that only 22% of the internally displaced girls over 5 years old had ever attended school, compared with 37% of the boys.
Additional challenges to gender equality in education in displacement settings are found in the violence surrounding many settings. Girls’ education is even sometimes the target of extremist militant groups as seen in Nigeria by the Boko Haram. The Education under Attack 2018 report profiled 18 countries where girls and young women were the targets of attacks on education. In Afghanistan, the Islamic State attacked 94 co-educational schools from 2013 to 2016. Continue reading
Posted in Gender, migration, Refugees and displaced people, Uncategorized
Tagged 2019 gem report, displaced populations, displacement, Gender, girls, migrants, migration
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Teachers multitask in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar camps for Rohingya refugees
This content comes from our newly released interactive youth version of the 2019 GEM Report.
Anowar is a Rohingya refugee who has been living in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh for over a year. He is a learning instructor in the Burmese language. ‘I’m happy. We Rohingya need education. If we don’t get it, we’ll suffer a lot.
At the beginning, it was a bit difficult because children were scared by the things that had happened in Myanmar. They saw lots of people being slaughtered when they were fleeing, so they were depressed. We helped them come to school for education and helped cure them of the depression.’
Jui is a host community teacher in camp #2, supported by UNICEF. ‘I noticed that the 
children are very excited about getting such love and caring. We go to them and ask if they have any problems, and after listening, we provide them with a lot of games that we have and if there is any serious issue then we go to their parents and solve it there.
That is why they feel happy to come here in school, because we communicate well with them; they feel inspired, and that makes me feel very good. We don’t just make them aware of education – we make them aware of health as well. For example, a few days ago we were told to prepare the kids to take the diphtheria vaccine.’ Continue reading
