Odisha to sign MoU with J-Pal for gender equity

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government is all set to sign a non-financial MoU with J-PAL to improve gender outcome in the state as per a press release issued by the School and Mass Education (S&ME) department here Tuesday. This move is expected to accelerate gender equity by changing attitude and behaviour among school going adolescents. The programme does not involve additional financial outlay and requires minimal in-kind support from the state government.

The programme focuses on integrating gender equity curriculum into school syllabi for Classes VI-X. The purpose of the gender equity programme is in sync with the goal of the 5T School Transformation agenda which is to help children dream big and move forward with confidence to face all challenges in life. This programme will be implemented from Academic Year 2022 and onwards.

The curriculum will come as a supplementary textbook for Social Studies and allied subjects like Geography, History and Political Science this year. It will be printed by the Odisha government. From 2023 onwards, the curriculum will be integrated to the existing SCERT Social Studies textbooks. The partner team would undertake a formative study across five districts to understand the local nuances for curriculum customisation to the state context.

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J-PAL South Asia will be the key knowledge and learning partner supporting the government in measurement of impact and implementation. The gender equity curriculum will be adapted and customised to the local context through formative research.

The partner team will also work with the S&ME department to train the gender resource coordinators as master trainers, who will be empowered to cascade the curriculum to social studies teachers across all Upper Primary and Secondary schools in state using a train-the-trainer model. That is, these master trainers will in turn cascade the training to teachers at the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIETS). Master trainers and teachers will undergo the training on core gender and inclusion concepts, instructional design concepts, facilitation skills and subject orientation on the curriculum to be rolled out.

The  project director of OSEPA has been appointed as the nodal officer of Odisha for implementation of the programme.