A user-friendly bibliography on "Gender in Education" was launched here on Friday in connection with International Women's Day celebrations. Led by senior officials of the Ministry of Education, the launch was attended by the Ministries of Women Development, Social Welfare and Special Education, members of the academia, representatives of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), representatives of donor organisations and specialised agencies of the United Nations (UN).
The bibliography was published as part of "Gender in Education Policy Support Programme", an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education in collaboration with the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). The programme is to strengthen policy planning and implementation through strategic interventions at the national level.
At the ceremony, presentations were given on communication strategies that worked for gender projects and CEDAW by Unesco, Unifem, UNICEF and White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan. Speaking on the occasion, Secretary Education, Imtiaz Kazi, termed management, data collection and dissemination as essential elements for informed policy making and evaluation function. "Such evidence-based publications assist the policy makers in making informed decisions by putting the best available evidence at the centre of policy process to mainstream gender into policies and processes," he said.
The annotated bibliography prepared by the Ministry of Education under the "Gender in Education Policy Support Project" provides a detailed list of research conducted on gender in education in Pakistan and is a collection of 125 studies on existing research. Such publications can be quite useful for research and as reference in future," he elaborated. The launch concluded with commitment from the government and various agencies to work for the empowerment of women in Pakistan to ensure equal opportunities and build indigenous capacity in knowledge management and effective mainstreaming in education policy and processes to benefit the education system in Pakistan at all levels.