Scaling Gender-Responsive Pedagogy: Insights from the Inaugural Regional Workshop

Why Gender-Responsive Pedagogy?

Gender-responsive pedagogy challenges the deep-rooted cultural norms that perpetuate gender inequalities in education. Reports such as the 2023 Gender Social Norms Index by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) affirm that negative gendered cultural beliefs, norms and practices in society still affect many communities, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to inequalities and violations of women and girls, boys and men. Further, The World Health Organisation’s Global Early Adolescent Study finds that between the ages 10–14, young adolescents face a critical point of intensification in personal gender attitudes, self-perceptions, as well as societal expectations of them. This stage allows teachers to challenge gender stereotypes through inclusive teaching, ensuring they don't limit children's potential later on.

A Shared Vision; Collaborative Efforts

It is against this background that the Regional Teachers Initiative for Africa (RTIA) was launched in April 2024 to improve the education and training of teachers to make sure that schools have enough qualified teachers. Aligned with the Continental Education Strategy for Africa, the initiative strengthens regional and national systems to deliver and scale effective professional development on Gender-Responsive Pedagogy.

Speaking at the event, VVOB in Kenya Country Programmes Manager Claire Mazin, noted that ensuring gender equality is not just a goal but a reality: "Our collective vision begins today: By fostering regional partnerships, we can accelerate gender-responsive teaching, exchange knowledge and drive advocacy—starting with our children, colleagues, and friends. Investing where it matters means mobilising resources wisely to build inclusive education systems and strengthen accountability."

Her sentiments were supported by Naomi Kamitha, Gender-Responsive Pedagogy Lead at FAWE Africa, who emphasised the tangible impact the participants’ collective work would have. “Our experience implementing gender-responsive pedagogy in Africa not only shows positive impacts on children's retention in school; we also see that girls and boys are able to speak up and act against gender inequalities. This shows the real transformative potential of Gender-Responsive Pedagogy.” She was speaking on behalf of Dr. Teresa Omondi-Adeitan, Deputy Director of FAWE Africa.

Strengthening and Scaling Gender-Responsive Pedagogy Initiatives

Over the two days, participants engaged in a dynamic exchange of ideas and experiences, structured around four key activities:

1. Showcasing existing Gender-Responsive Pedagogy (GRP) innovations – Participants from a range of national and international organisations, shared successful approaches to GRP in their respective countries, highlighting what has worked, the challenges faced and the impact observed in classrooms. These included approaches supporting gender-responsive teaching and learning, innovative TPD approaches on GRP using technology like mobile apps, and programmes building community involvement and support for GRP, for example, through community-based mentorship and career guidance.
2. Analysing scalability considerations – Identifying good practices alone does not suffice. To have real impact, GRP approaches need to be implemented at scale in different education systems. The second part of the workshop therefore, centred on what makes a GRP initiative scalable, exploring aspects such as institutional buy-in, policy alignment, cost-effectiveness and adaptability across diverse contexts.
3. Co-creative improvement of initiatives – In a subsequent step, participants refined existing Gender-Responsive Pedagogy approaches, integrating lessons learnt and feedback from peers to strengthen their effectiveness and feasibility.  Key strategies from these sessions included using iterative design to improve effectiveness, building evidence of impact and assessing the value of Gender-Responsive Pedagogy components to identify those that may not be necessary or cost-effective. Blended teacher professional development models were also highlighted as a best practice.
4. Developing resource mobilisation strategies – The workshop concluded with sessions on donor engagement and funding approaches, equipping organisations with strategies to secure resources for expanding their Gender-Responsive Pedagogy initiatives. Through engaging role-play, participants practiced pitching their refined ideas to financial partners, getting hands-on experience selling their ideas in compelling and effective ways.  
    

Participants described the two-day interaction as highly informative. “A key highlight for me was recognising that there’s so much we are already doing, what we need to strengthen is documentation, collaboration and building of evidence, through research. Practicing pitching our ideas to donors was eye-opening as it requires you to think differently about your initiative, not in technical terms, but on how to communicate its impact most effectively,” said Sylvain Mudahinyuka, Project Officer at Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Rwanda.

Moving Forward: Partnerships for Scale

As a result of this workshop, organisations have committed to refining their initiatives and pursuing strategic partnerships to scale GRP in their respective contexts. VVOB and FAWE will continue to support this process through ongoing collaboration, knowledge sharing and resource mobilisation efforts within the RTIA framework.

Learn more about the RTIA project.