PCF5:Gender in development

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Title of session

Gender in development

Session details

• Date:16 July 2008
• Time:16H00
• Room:731

Session papers

• Prof. Chandra Gunawardena, Women’s participation in online learning in Sri Lanka, (336)
• Prof. Chandra Gunawardena, Online learning for extending access and facilitating employability in Sri Lanka, (704)
• Prof. Dr. Manzurul Islam, Open and distance learning/ICT-initiated functional adult literacy for sustainable livelihoods: case study in a pilot project at a remote rural area of Bangladesh, (582)
• Dr. Balasubramanian Kodhandaraman, Open and distance learning technology for development of livelihoods: reflections on case studies of rural India, (169)

Key Issues that arose in the session

• Flexi-time, malleable and situation adaptable demand driven ODL programmes can provide access to women in order to assist them to acquire employable skills to improve livelihoods and thereby help achieve the millennium development goals.

• Dearth of employable skills, institutional support, family distractions, discrimination and male superiority, and female inferiority stereotyping remain daunting challenges confronting women in many developing societies.

• Lack of infrastructure and energy is hampering ODL programmes delivery in remote and deprived communities in developing nations.

• Forging of public private partnerships with both local and foreign companies and organisations for skills sourcing for the nurture of local competence in technology mediated ODL programmes development can help stimulate skills and technology transfer at local level and help promote content development and education extension via ODL.

Points for future action (Policy, recommendations, commitments etc.)

• Appropriate technologies should be used in specific contexts. Similarly, developing communities and societies should investigate employing environmental friendly energy solutions, like wind and solar energy, that are applicable in remote areas where there are no national power grids in order to enable the extension of technology mediated ODL programmes to rural folk and deprived communities.

• There is the need to partner and collaborate with developing nations to develop their human resources in the development and delivery of ODL programmes.

• Investment in innovation can help move the process of ODL programmes delivery forward.