International Journal of Educational Development 31 (2011) 44–49

Equality or equity: Gender awareness issues in secondary schools in Pakistan

Anjum Halai *

Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University, PO Box 13688, Karachi 75950, Pakistan

A R T I C L E I N F O

Keywords:

Gender awareness

Social justice

Education quality

Capabilities

Functioning

A B S T R A C T

This paper focuses on gender awareness issues as a dimension of addressing the wider issue of the

quality of education in Pakistan from the perspective of social justice. In Pakistan classrooms, boys and

girls learn separately and therefore teachers and others tend to think that there are no gender issues once

access is achieved and the learners are in the classroom. However, beyond access there are several factors

that compromise quality of education and raise issues for gender equity as an element of social justice.

These issues are examined in the context of a professional development intervention on promoting

gender awareness among secondary mathematics teachers in disadvantaged schools in rural Pakistan.

Drawing upon the seminal work of Sen (1999) the paper posits that teacher professional development

for gender awareness and more broadly should raise teachers’ consciousness and enable them to develop

their capabilities to function in ways that are valued by them and are not necessarily adaptive to

dominant social forces. The paper raises significant issues for policy and practice in school education and

teacher education.

� 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Educational Development

journa l homepage: www.e lsev ier .com/ locate / i jedudev

1. Introduction

The relationship between gender and performance in educationhas received considerable attention in education. While genderequality has often been seen as an issue with regard to access toeducation, the Education for All (EFA) goals acknowledge thatgender equity is also a significant element of quality in education(UNESCO, 2003). Indices and measures are developed by UNESCOInstitute of Statistics to document and measure the progress madein gender parity in access and achievement in education. Accordingto the information provided in the latest UNESCO EFA GlobalMonitoring Report, in South and West Asia there are 57 millionmore children in school in 2007 than in 1999. In 2007, the netenrolment ratio is 86% (up on 74% in 1999), the gender parity indexis 0.96 (up on 0.84 in 1999). In 2007, there were an estimated 18million children out of school, 58% of whom were girls, animprovement on figures for 1999 when there were 39 millionchildren out of school, 63% of whom were girls (UNESCO, 2010, pp.346–347).

An issue with numerical indices and measures of gender parityin education is that they do not reflect the inherent biases andimbalances in classroom practice which often manifest widercultural and societal patterns of behaviours and traditionalstereotypical gender roles of women and men. As Aikman et al.(2005) maintain, assumptions about what is appropriate for boys

* Tel.: +92 21 634 7611; fax: +92 21 634 7616.

E-mail address: anjum.halai@aku.edu.

0738-0593/$ – see front matter � 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2010.06.012

and girls to learn often undermines aspirations for equality inpedagogy. In education, especially in the more traditional societies,these assumptions very often favour the dominant genderperspective. It is increasingly being recognised that gender equityas an element of education quality must be taken in a wider socialsense where a dialogic interaction is created between themarginalized and the mainstream forces in the society so thatunderpinning assumptions may be questioned and challenged(Unterhalter, 2005, p. 112).

This paper focuses on gender awareness issues as a dimensionof the wider issue of education quality in Pakistan from theperspective of social justice. It draws on data generated in thecourse of a professional development intervention with mathe-matics teachers in disadvantaged secondary classrooms inPakistan. The intervention was aimed at developing skills forimplementing a problem solving curriculum and, as a secondarystrand, raising teachers’ gender awareness. The paper starts with adescription of the context, focusing on the main gender-relatedaccess and performance issues in Pakistan. The second section usesSen’s capability approach to argue that examination performancemay be treated as well being achievement. In order to understandthe factors that lie behind the underperformance of girls relative toboys in disadvantaged districts of Pakistan it is necessary to look atwell being and agency freedom, namely the factors that enhance orconstrain opportunities to achieve. The third section overviews thedevelopment initiative and briefly describes the schools included.The fourth section presents findings relating to three contributionsto girls’ well being and agency freedom in mathematics class-rooms. These were girls’ access to schooling, teachers’ qualifica-

A. Halai / International Journal of Educational Development 31 (2011) 44–49 45

tions and sense of self-efficacy in mathematics and both teachers’and learners’ gendered perspectives, which are strongly influencedby the broader socio-cultural environment outside of school. Theconclusion reflects on reasons why the intervention appeared tohave no impact on participants’ gendered perspectives andconsiders implications for the design of professional developmentaimed at raising teachers’ gender awareness.

2. Background and context

Pakistan takes explicit account of gender in providing access toand administration of schooling. It divides schools mainly intothose with male students with male teachers and, female studentswith female teachers. Typically, secondary schools in Pakistan aresingle sex schools and generally parents prefer to send their girls toa single sex school. In the few private schools offering co-educationat secondary levels, boys and girls usually sit in separate sections ofthe same class. Rural elementary schools are the main source of anational gender gap in mathematics achievement. This has beenattributed to the inability of rural schools for female students toretain women teachers with specific training in mathematics andthe fact that male teachers have a higher average qualification levelthan female teachers (Warwick and Reimers, 1995). More recentnational statistics in education in Pakistan do show considerableimprovement in bringing gender parity to education. However,according to the website of the Ministry of Women’s Developmentof the government of Pakistan the progress is slow and deepinequities persist (Ministry of Women’s Development, 2010).

Mainstream or government schools offer primary1 educationfrom classes I–V (for children aged 5–9 years) and then middleschooling, classes VI–VIII (ages 10–12 years) and finally secondaryschooling, classes IX–X (ages 13–14 years). In classes IX and Xstudents take the secondary school matriculation examination,which is conducted by the Boards of Secondary Education. Policymaking is the responsibility of the federal government.2 Implemen-tation is mostly carried out by the provincial governments and,increasingly, at district level. District government is responsible forthe improvement of governance and delivery of service through theoffice of the Executive District Officer Education (EDO-E). In 2005–2006, the Ministry of Education (MoE) undertook several reforminitiatives in education including a curriculum review and newscheme of studies (MoE, 2009). A significant addition in the newnational curriculum in mathematics was standards and benchmarksfor development of mathematical thinking including problemsolving. In the national curriculum for mathematics, the teachers’role was rerouted from dispensing information to planninginvestigative tasks, managing a cooperative learning environment,and supporting students’ creativity in developing rational under-standing of the concepts of mathematics (MoE, 2006, pp. 2–3).

Pakistan is neither a participant in the Trends in InternationalMathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), conducted by theInternational Association for the Evaluation of EducationalAchievement (IEA), nor the Programme for International StudentAssessment (PISA). However, results of the National EducationAssessment System (NEAS), a national assessment in mathematicstaken at grade four (8–9 years) and again at grade eight (12–13years), show that girls’ mean score is higher than boys at grade fourlevel but is lower than boys at grade eight level. Studentachievement in the matriculation examination results nationwide

1 According to the new education policy, the primary and middle schools are

being merged as ‘‘elementary schools’’ and the age limit at all levels is increased by

1 year (MoE, 2009).2 Pakistan is a federation with four provinces i.e. Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan and

North West Frontier Province (NWFP); federally administered areas, Azad Jammu

and Kashmir, and the federal capital Islamabad. Sindh includes some of the most

poverty stricken regions in the country.

show that girls are doing better generally than boys in terms ofsecuring the top positions. A closer examination of mathematicsresults disaggregated for gender is not possible because the Boardsof Secondary Education in the public sector do not maintain thedata sets for results disaggregated for gender and mathematics.However, the newly launched Aga Khan Examination Board3 (AKU-EB) in the private sector does make examination data available,which made it possible to compare boys’ and girls’ performance.

From the 2-year examination result, data for mathematics inthe AKU-EB has showed that boys’ enrollment is higher than thatfor girls in both the years but the performance of girls in theexamination is significantly better than boys. The percentage passrates for girls are greater than that for boys and also the high gradesare achieved by higher numbers of girls. This advantage in favour ofgirls is also carried through in mathematics. While the AKU-EBresults cannot be taken to represent national trends because it is aprivate examination board with mostly private schools subscribingto it, it does confirm that in a given sample of students, girlsachieved better in mathematics although they were proportionallyless in number (for further information, see Halai, 2010).

The results from AKU-EB and NEAS are confounding and mustbe probed and considered carefully because it masks several otherissues and inequities in mathematics education specifically andsecondary education generally. Girls’ poor performance in NEAS ingrade eight as compared to grade four could be indicating that theschooling process works to disadvantage girls as they progressthrough school or else that the social context presents additionalbarriers for teenage girls and young women. Disadvantage of ruralgirls in achievement in mathematics has also been seen as a trendglobally (UNESCO, 2010). Likewise, girls performing better in theAKU-EB matriculation examination could be because those girls,who do eventually make it to the secondary schools, are relativelyadvantaged in terms of socio-economic background of their familyand opportunities available and are therefore performing betterthan boys. If the schools covered by the AKU-EB were in urbanareas and relatively privileged then the strong performance of girlsmirrors the relatively high achievement of girls in urban areasworldwide (Smith and Barrett in this issue find a similar pattern ofurban girls’ advantage across Southern and East Africa). Furtherresearch is required to undertake a comparative analysis ofachievement in mathematics of boys from similar backgrounds tounderstand girls’ better performance in spite of the high oddsstacked against them in the context of education in Pakistan.

3. Gender equity and social justice in education

Gender awareness issues are a significant element of socialjustice in education quality, whether the concern is at themacrolevel of education policy or at the microlevel in theclassroom, to ensure that the school and classroom processesare inclusive. The seminal work of Sen offers the capabilityapproach for analysis of issues relating to social justice. This isespecially suited to gender justice in education, where issues ofredistribution and equality are integrally linked to wider social andcultural practices. Key concepts in his framework are ‘‘functioning’’and ‘‘capabilities’’, where a functioning is ‘‘the various things aperson may value doing or being [—] and capability is thealternative combinations of functioning that are feasible for aperson to achieve’’ (Sen, 1999, p. 75).

3 Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB) is a Federal Board of

Intermediate and Secondary Education established by Aga Khan University (AKU) in

response to demand from schools for more appropriate school examinations. AKU-

EB was founded in August 2003 to offer examination services for both Secondary

School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) throughout

Pakistan and abroad. For gender segregated exam results of AKU-EB see: http://

www.aku.edu/AKUEB/onlineresults.shtml.

A. Halai / International Journal of Educational Development 31 (2011) 44–4946

Sen (1999) goes on to elaborate the aspects of ‘‘capability’’ whichwhen taken together provide a holistic framework for development.These include the notion of ‘‘well being freedom’’ which relates toconditions suitable for ‘‘well being achievement’’, the extent towhich well being has been achieved. ‘‘Agency freedom’’ pertains tothe opportunities that allow one to choose the goals one values.Finally, the notion of ‘‘agency achievement’’ concerns the function ofchoosing the goals one values or the extent to which the valued goalshave been achieved. The significance of these concepts is inconjunction with each other as they emphasize that analysis ofsocial justice must go beyond consideration of individuals’achievement of personal goals to take account of the way thatmarginalized sections of society, such as women, frequently exhibitpreferences adjusted to their second-class status. Hence, along witha focus on what people have achieved, it is also important to analyzewhat individuals are able to do, their ability to reach a valuable stateof being. Following on from Unterhalter (2003, p. 7) and Tao (2010, p.16), who map these concepts to education, well being achievementwould entail success in examinations like matriculation orcompletion of schooling, which enhance individuals’ potential torealize valued outcomes, such as secure employment, financialindependence, further education and esteem. Well being freedomwould be the conditions necessary for well being achievement, suchas safe school environment or competent teachers with potential tobe strong role models. Agency freedom would be the opportunitiesfor individuals to engage in the, classroom, which in a mathematicsclassroom would include opportunities to engage in mathematicalproblem solving with the goal of becoming proficient in mathemat-ics. Agency achievement would be the extent to which these valuedgoals are realized.

However, capability freedoms need to be developed. One couldbe deprived of them for many reasons such as ignorance,oppression, poverty or false consciousness. In education, a focuson functioning, say, by looking at whether or not the learners havepassed the examination, or the number of students who gainaccess to schools, would overlook implicit and inherent valuesabout the nature and process of education that constrain learners’freedoms to achieve the functioning. It is through developingcapabilities that the participants in the education process such asteachers could engage in reflection and question those valueswhich inhibit a more equitable participation for women.

The role of teachers is crucial in empowering students to chooseaspirations and attributes that they value. Teacher education andcontinuing professional development need to address genderawareness because failure to do so could create conditions thatperpetuate and reproduce gender inequality. Teachers andcurriculum materials often send gender discriminatory messages,which are implicit and could be due to teachers’ lack of genderawareness. A consequence of these inherent biases is that whilstthey have access to education, learners, in particular girls, do nothave ‘‘well being freedom’’, i.e. a learning environment that takesinto account their differentiated needs and provides them withconditions for optimal participation in the process of schooling.Hence, expanding teachers’ professional capabilities for gender-aware and reflective practice could challenge prevailing dominantnotions about what constitutes quality education at the level of theclassroom (Nussbaum, 2000; Unterhalter, 2003; Walker, 2005).Achieving gender justice in education would entail developing thefreedoms of all individuals irrespective of gendered or other formsof discrimination to choose actions, aspirations and attributes thatthey have reason to value (Aikman and Unterhalter, 2005, p. 3).

4. A professional development intervention

The professional development intervention on gender aware-ness issues reported in this paper was undertaken as part of a

larger action research study in schools and classrooms indisadvantaged rural secondary mathematics classrooms in Paki-stan. The action research study was focused on improving teachers’pedagogic practice through implementing a problem solvingmathematics curriculum in which teachers worked closely witha visiting university team, sponsored by the Research ProgrammeConsortium (RPC) on Education Quality in Low Income Countries(EdQual). Problem solving in mathematics was an area of needidentified by the teachers and also highlighted as a focus in the newnational curriculum. The other strand in this work was raisinggender awareness amongst secondary mathematics teachers forgender justice in classroom practice. This strand was mainly drivenby the university based team in the form of a professionaldevelopment intervention.

To promote a pedagogic practice of problem solving, teacherswere introduced to frameworks for problem solving such as thosedeveloped by Polya (1957) and Mason et al. (1993). These are broadand flexible frameworks which emphasize student engagement inthe process of decision making as they start, make progress withand ultimately resolve a mathematical problem. Problem solvingprocesses in the classroom are well documented for providingintellectual and social space for learners to engage withmathematics which is meaningful to them and would supportboth boys and girls in learning mathematics. For example, Becker(1995) maintains that problem solving processes support learningwhich builds on the personal experience of the learner, andexplores what actions and thoughts lead to the perception thatsomething is known. In teaching through problem solving, adiversity of approaches is welcomed and knowledge is constructedthrough consensus. As such, it provides a learning environment tosupport both boys and girls (Becker, 1995, pp. 169–170). Theproblem solving approach was seen essentially as child centred inits ethos, leading to less control from the teacher and greater spacefor learners’ intellectual engagement. As noted by Sriprakash, inthe context of education reform in rural primary classrooms inIndia, child centred approaches are considered an importantelement of education quality because they provide an alternativeto the usual didactic and autocratic teaching practices, which areunjust in their positioning of learners as passive recipients ofknowledge (Sriprakash, 2009, 2010; also see discussion of rights-based approach in Tikly and Barrett, this issue).

Key elements of the professional development intervention ongender awareness were to enable the teachers to critically analyzethe curricular processes in their classroom in the context of aproblem solving pedagogy, plan teaching for boys’ and girls’ activeintellectual engagement with mathematics and develop responsesto address emerging issues related to gender inequity in theclassroom. The intervention was over the period 1st January 2007to 31st December 2009 and had four main components. The firstwas a literature review and needs analysis (for details see Barwellet al., 2007). The latter involved developing school profilesincluding information on school infrastructure, number ofstudents and teachers and teacher qualification; meetings withdistrict and school leadership to understand issues in boys’ andgirls’ education generally, and more specifically with reference tomathematics. Also, lessons were observed for each participatingteacher and teacher interviews were conducted in groups toidentify their concerns and needs as teachers of mathematics. Thesecond component was a teacher’ ‘‘self-inventory’’ adapted fromMason (2002), which was administered twice in the project, firsttowards the beginning and then towards the end. Key areascovered by items in the inventory included teachers’ perceptions ofboys and girls as learners of mathematics, their views on boys’ andgirls’ natural ability to learn mathematics, usefulness of mathe-matics for boys and girls, and teachers’ experience of andpreference for teaching boys or girls. The third component was

A. Halai / International Journal of Educational Development 31 (2011) 44–49 47

school-based workshops (12 workshops per school), in whichteachers worked at mathematics tasks and reflected on the processof their engagement in mathematics problem solving and itsimplications for their role in enabling all learners to engage inmathematics problem solving. The last component was annualTaluka (sub-district unit) workshops (one each in the three schoolsin the Taluka), where mathematics teachers from the boys’ andgirls’ schools in the Taluka participated in mathematics problemsolving. These workshops were followed up with focus groupdiscussions on emerging issues related to supporting boys and girlsto engage in mathematics problem solving.

Schools for participation in the professional developmentinitiative were selected on the basis of a ‘‘District Education Index(DEI)’’, which investigates the dispersion in the educational statusof districts irrespective of their economic status and measures theaverage shortfall from a perfect score of 100 percent. The closer thevalue of the DEI is to 100, the better endowed it is with respect toeducation variables (SPDC, 2003). With respect to this DEI, Thattawas at the bottom quintile amongst all districts in Sindh and of theseven Talukas in Thatta, Mirpur Sakro was selected as it was amongthe Talukas most severely affected by poverty ridden in the district.

There were 14 government high (secondary) schools in theTaluka, nine for boys and five for girls. Of these, four were identifiedfor the professional development intervention through a consul-tative process with the EDO-E Thatta. However, due to resourceconstraints, work was undertaken in three schools. All theseschools had the basic infrastructure in terms of a boundary wall,classrooms and toilets. Conditions in and around the schools weredismal as the classrooms were dark and walls were bare.Blackboard and chalk were the only available teaching resourcesand in many classrooms the blackboards were broken or pock-marked. To enter the school one had to cross over rubbish heaps ornegotiate pools of stagnant water with swarms of flies. On averagethe teacher to student ratio stood at 1:30, lower than the nationalaverage, which is close to 1:40 in primary schools (MoE, 2009).

5. Gender awareness in schools and classrooms: case of a ruraldistrict in Pakistan

The following section presents issues that emerged from analysisof the data collected that relate to gender awareness. Three sets ofissues were identified. These were disparity in access to secondaryschools for boys and girls, disparity in male and female teacherqualification and their sense of efficacy in mathematics andgendered perceptions of boys and girls as learners of mathematics.

5.1. Secondary schools in Taluka Mirpur Sakro: unequal access

While compiling school profiles it emerged that one of theparticipating schools, which was documented as a ‘‘boys’ school’’ inthe records of the office of EDO-E, had eight girls in both class IXand class X, sitting in the same classroom as the boys. The headteacher informed us that there was no secondary school for girls inthe village and the parents wanted the girls to continue with theireducation. Hence, they were accommodated in the boys’ school. Oninquiring if the district education office was aware that this wasthe situation, he provided an explanation that he had requested thedistrict office to upgrade the elementary girls’ school to the statusof secondary school so that the girls did not face this inconve-nience. He went on to elaborate that some school rules had beenrelaxed to accommodate the girls in the secondary classes. Forinstance, they were exempt from the school assembly, physicaltraining and exercise sessions and any school event where thestudents mingle freely. They were allowed to come late and onlyparticipate in the academic work. This was also for pragmaticreasons as there were only male toilets in the school.

The head teacher went on to explain that ‘‘accommodation’’ ofgirls in a boys’ school although not widespread was also not a veryrare event. He reported that official records did not recognise thepresence of these girls because the schools were recorded as boys’schools. The district office looked upon this as a temporaryarrangement until a girls’ school was made available. However, thebureaucracy moved very slowly and his application was stillpending, although he was trying his best to make things to movefaster. Indeed, towards the end of the project the district educationoffice had approved the nearby elementary school be upgraded tothe status of a high school. However, the mathematics teacherexplained to us that the school so upgraded did not have amathematics teacher. Hence his head teacher had requested him togo twice or thrice a week to teach mathematics to the girls.

Education is a capability in the sense of Sen’s usage that wouldenable the learners to exercise greater control over their livesthrough offering them greater choice. To this extent the educationproviders in Taluka Mirpur Sakro were striving to develop thecapabilities of the girls in the community by opening the doors ofthe boys’ school for them. In the highly gender segregated andconservative setting of Taluka Mirpur Sakro, the parents andcommunity had taken a bold step in allowing adolescent girls toattend a boys’ school. However, the education bureaucracy hadtaken the decision of opening the boys’ school for girls from amanagement and delivery perspective, and did not necessarilytake into account the well being freedom of the individualsinvolved. If that had been the case, they would have looked beyondaccess to consider how individuals participate in education onceinside the school.

5.2. Disparity in teacher qualification and sense of efficacy in

mathematics

Twelve mathematics teachers of classes VI–VIII, participated inthe professional development initiative. Of these, eight werewomen and four were men. In terms of qualification, male andfemale teachers fulfilled the eligibility criteria for secondary schoolteachers set by the Ministry of Education, i.e. they were master’sgraduates with a first degree in education. However, a detailedexamination of teachers’ academic and professional qualificationshowed that even if women teachers fulfilled the eligibility criteriathey did not have mathematics as their major in either theirundergraduate or graduate studies. Head teachers in the girls’schools had complained that it was very difficult for them to findteachers who were suitably prepared to teach mathematics at theelementary and/or secondary level. One head teacher stated thatdue to this shortage she had started to teach mathematics becauseshe was keenly interested in the subject, even though she had notstudied it beyond high school. In the boys’ school the head teacherhad a master’s degree in mathematics and all the mathematicsteachers had also studied mathematics within their first degreeand some had pursued mathematics at master’s level. The headteacher maintained that he was satisfied with his school becausehe had a very experienced and appropriately qualified staff and hisstudents performed well in the matriculation examinations. Theteachers echoed this view. They maintained that they wereknowledgeable in school mathematics but would appreciate someexposure to innovative teaching methods. The disparity in teacherqualification in the girls’ school and the boys’ school reflects thegeneral pattern in teacher qualification in Pakistan (Halai, 2007;SPDC, 2003; Warwick and Reimers, 1995). Raising the issue withthe EDO-E, it became apparent that the district officials were awareof the disparity but did not have the capacity to address it in theshort to medium term.

In the school-based workshops, teachers worked throughinvestigative mathematics problems in group settings and analyzed

A. Halai / International Journal of Educational Development 31 (2011) 44–4948

the process of their engagement to see implications for promotingintellectual engagement of young learners. For example, theyconsidered the focus on the ‘‘process’’ and not just the ‘‘product’’ ofmathematics problem solving by inviting learners to explain andrationalize their thinking in arriving at a particular solution. Herealso the issue of teachers’ inadequate knowledge in mathematicsemerged as an issue. For example, one teacher in the girls’ schoolpicked up the textbook and pointed to several word problems,saying, ‘‘Miss, we ourselves do not know how to solve theseproblems involving volumes of cylindrical shapes. How can we teachproblem solving to our students’’ (field notes translated from Urdu).Other teachers confirmed that they taught mathematics lessons onlybecause their head teacher had asked them to do so but they did notfeel confident in teaching it to elementary and/or secondary classes.Invariably the reflection sessions at the end of the workshops led to adiscussion of subject knowledge and its implications for practice.

In the school-based workshops in the boys’ school, teacherswere able to engage with problem solving tasks, supported theirpeers in working through the mathematics and did not necessarilydepend on the university team for support. Discussions in thereflection sessions in the workshops often focused on the dismalconditions of the classrooms and the challenge this presented toengage learners. For example, one teacher said

‘‘There are no training funds in our school; we do not have thebasic materials like geometry box, charts to teach mathematics.We find it difficult to teach mathematics to children because itis not enough to explain to them on the blackboard. We havemany challenges in our school’’ (field notes translated fromUrdu).

The observations noted above raise questions for a professionaldevelopment intervention aimed at raising gender awarenessissues.

As would be expected, teachers’ primary concerns appeared tobe development of their scholastic and pedagogical knowledge andinadequate classrooms resources. Questions related to boys andgirls as learners of mathematics and related to deeper social issuesdid not appear to be their primary day to day concern. Thecapabilities approach provides analytical insight. ‘‘Well beingfreedom’’ in the sense of effective opportunity to achieve inexaminations at the end of a basic education is provided by accessto adequate learning resources together with having teachers, whoare competent to deliver the curriculum and can create genderequitable learning environments. Teachers recognised that lack ofaccess to learning resources and their own skills for delivering themathematics curriculum limited opportunities for girls and boys tolearn. However, they had only restricted notions of gender equityand this meant that learning opportunities for girls in particularwere constrained. This is not surprising. Gender equity issues arecomplex and not easy to ‘‘observe’’ in the course of classroomteaching especially in a single sex classroom. The nationalcurriculum 2006 articulated, quite forcefully, the focus onimproving the academic content and process. Hence, teachers feltthat emphasis on problem solving and scholastic achievement wasaligned with their needs.

A national curriculum is an important element of legislationand should aim at developing full capabilities of all learners. In thecontext of education in Pakistan, where the government iscommitted to addressing widespread gender disparity, it isimportant to ensure that the national curriculum goals aresupported by a curricular process ensuring gender justice in theclassroom. A possible approach could be that the nationalcurriculum is accompanied by implementation guidelines, whichmake explicit the values that underpin the curriculum andrecommendations for teachers and teacher educators to incorpo-rate those values when teaching the content.

5.3. Teachers, learners and mathematics: gendered perspectives

Certain consistent patterns emerged in teachers’ views aboutboys and girls as learners of mathematics and related issues. Allteachers maintained that once the boys and girls were in theclassroom, there were no differences in the quality and opportu-nity of learning mathematics because the national curriculum andthe textbooks were the same. Most teachers subscribed to the viewthat boys and girls have the same ‘‘natural ability’’ to learnmathematics. Only one female teacher stated that boys werenaturally more able to learn mathematics. In terms of usefulness ofmathematics for boys and girls, participants consistently indicatedthat mathematics was more useful for boys because they woulddevelop their careers, for example in engineering and architecture,whilst girls would be mainly homemakers and could use ‘‘hishab’’(arithmetic) in their household. In elaboration of their responses, inmore than one case girls were referred to as ‘‘becharis’’ (poorthings) which is a nuanced phrase with layered meanings andrecognition that the position of girls is weak in the largely maledominated and gender segregated rural society.

In terms of their preference towards teaching boys or girls, allbut two female teachers stated that they did not have a preferenceeither way. One female teacher stated that she felt comfortableteaching girls because they are ‘‘easier to manage’’ and ‘‘do as theyare told’’. Another female teacher stated that she would like toexperience teaching boys as it would be a challenge. Whilst maleteachers did not show a preference either way, two of them didelaborate that after teaching boys it would be easier to teach girlsbecause they listen carefully and follow instructions. The slightvariation in teachers’ preference for teaching boys or girls wasarticulated more in terms of management and control and notnecessarily in terms of enabling boys or girls to learn mathematics.

The patterns in data were consistent and there was no noticeableshift in them from the initial to second inventory or in the focusgroup discussion. This little or no variation in data collected over aperiod of time and across individual teachers suggests that theseviews were deep rooted and representative of the wider societalviews. The implications of these findings for the professionaldevelopment of teachers are discussed in the forthcoming section.

6. Conclusions and recommendations

The case of Taluka Mirpur Sakro illustrates that the parents andcommunity value education beyond primary school for girls. Thishas created a paradoxical situation where the community appearsready to challenge the deep rooted tradition of gender segregation insuch key aspects of social life as schooling but the educationbureaucracy is more conservative, insisting on single sex schoolingand hence stretching its limited resources, with detrimental effect tothe quality of schooling available to girls. Teachers, head teachersand the district education officials believed that equality in access toschools for boys and girls was equivalent to gender equity. Theteachers’ reasoning process did not appear to go beyond access to theclassrooms to consider ways in which they and in turn their studentscould realize their selfhoods and participate more fully in society.Their focus was on material resources required for teaching andlearning but not on how social and cultural factors influencedlearning and hence freedom to achieve in education.

To the extent that the quality of school facilities and theenvironment of teaching and learning in both boys’ and girls’schools was not of high quality, it is a justifiable claim that boysand girls had access to schooling of comparable quality. However,looking beyond access, the schooling conditions were favourablefor boys, especially in the case of mathematics teaching andlearning. Girls’ freedom to learn was constrained relative to boysby their teachers’ inability to model a confident self-image as

A. Halai / International Journal of Educational Development 31 (2011) 44–49 49

mathematicians. In addition, teachers’ expectations from girls asusers of mathematics, was lower as compared to expectations fromboys and reflected traditional societal perceptions of gender roles.Applying a capabilities lens, this can be understood as constraininggirls’ aspirations and hence, curtailing girls’ ‘‘agency freedom’’ tochoose success in mathematics as a valued goal.

There was no evidence of a shift in gender perspectives amongstteachers participating in the intervention and a relative lack ofownership of gender awareness issues. This situation raises severalquestions about the nature of the professional developmentoffered. The intervention was mainly focused on issues of teachingand learning of mathematics. Gender issues on the other hand arelarger and rooted in the socio-cultural setting, so that they are notnecessarily ‘‘observable’’ in the context of classroom practice,especially if the practice is in single sex classrooms. Themethodology of the professional development initiative neededto be reconsidered so that the unit of change could be situated inthe wider community and not just within the confines of theschool. Gendered lived experiences tend to be taken for granted,thereby making a case for interventions aimed at bringing them tosurface. As Aikman et al. (2005, pp. 47–48) point out, it is notenough for teachers to have a professional orientation towardsgender equity but they also need to change personal behaviourbecause gender issues touch not just their practice but how theylive gender equity in their life.

To conclude, for the potential of professional developmentinterventions to raise gender awareness to be realized thecentrality of the teacher cannot be denied. However, the unit ofchange should be situated in the broader social and culturalcontext of the teachers’ lives so that those underlying generativefeatures which impede change but are seen as peripheral byeducation stakeholders, become central with potential for a fullerrealization of the goals of gender equity as an integral element ofsocial justice in education quality. The scope of teachers’ reflectionneeds to broaden to go beyond the classroom to include reflectionon social and cultural context as well as pedagogy.

There is hope in the fact that community and parents are readyto challenge the tradition of single sex schooling to provide greateropportunity to the girls. Spaces are being created for girls’ access toand participation in education. The extent to which access toeducation is turned into a capability with freedom to participate inways that maximizes the potential for all learners, is a challenge forteacher preparation and teacher development. In the context of thehighly gender segregated and traditional setting of Pakistan thiswould entail enhancing the professional capability of teachers toquestion some deep rooted social and cultural hierarchiesembedded in gender relations, to recognise their influence ontheir own self-identity and on the opportunities for learning theyprovide for their students.

References

Aikman, S., Unterhalter, E., 2005. Introduction. In: Aikman, S., Unterhalter, E.(Eds.), Beyond Access: Transforming Policy and Practice for Gender Equalityin Education. Oxfam, Oxford, pp.

Aikman, S., Unterhalter, E., Challender, C., 2005. Achieving gender equality throughcurriculum change and pedagogy change. Gender and Development 13 (1),44–55.

Becker, J.R., 1995. Women’s’ ways of knowing in mathematics. In: Rogers, P., Kaiser,G. (Eds.), Equity in Mathematics Education, Influences of Feminism and Culture.Falmer Press, London, pp. 163–174.

Barwell, R., Bishop, K., Erduran, S., Halai, A., Iyamuremye, D., Nyabanyaba, T., Rizvi,N.F., Rodrigues, S., Rubagiza, J., Uworwabayeho, A., 2007. Implementing curric-ulum change – literature reviews: South Africa, Rwanda and Pakistan. EdQualWorking Paper. www.edqual.org (last retrieved 30.06.10.).

Halai, A., 2010. Gender and mathematics education in Pakistan: a situation analysis.Montana Mathematics Enthusiast 7 (1).

Halai, A., 2007. Boys are better mathematicians: gender issues from mathematicsclassrooms in Pakistan. In: Rarieya, J., Qureshi, R. (Eds.), Gender and Educationin Pakistan. Oxford University Press, Karachi.

Mason, J., 2002. Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline of Noticing. Rou-tledge, Falmer, London.

Mason, J., Burton, L., Stacey, K., 1993. Thinking Mathematically. Addison Wesley,Harlow.

MoE, 2009. New national education policy. Revised August 1, 2009. www.moe.gov.pk (last retrieved 20.08.09.).

MoE, 2006. National Curriculum for Mathematics Grades I–XII, 2006. Governmentof Pakistan Ministry of Education, Islamabad. (last retrieved 20.08.09.)In: www.moe.gov.pk.

Ministry of Women’s Development, 2010. www.mowd.gov.pk (last accessed19.05.10.).

Nussbaum, M., 2000. Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Polya, G., 1957. How to Solve It: The Classic Introduction to Mathematical ProblemSolving. Penguin Books, London.

Sen, A., 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Social Policy Development Centre (SPDC) Survey, 2003. Social Development in

Pakistan: The State of Education. Annual Review 2002–03. SPDC, Karachi.Sriprakash, A., 2010. Child-centred education and the promise of democratic

learning: pedagogic messages in rural Indian primary schools. InternationalJournal of Educational Development 30, 297–304.

Sriprakash, A., 2009. Joyful learning’ in rural Indian primary schools: an analysisof social control in the context of child-centred discourses. Compare 39 (5),629–641.

Tao, S., 2010. Applying the capability approach to school improvement interven-tions in Tanzania. EdQual Working Paper. EdQual, Bristol. www.edaual.org (lastretrieved 30.05.10.).

UNESCO, 2003. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2003–4 – Gender and Educationfor All: The Leap to Equality, Regional Overview South and West Asia.www.unesco.org/education/efa_report/zoom_regions_pdf/soweasia.pdf (lastretrieved 25.07.09.).

UNESCO, 2010. EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010 – Reaching the Marginalized.UNESCO, Oxford University Press, Paris, Oxford.

Unterhalter, E., 2005. Global inequality, capabilities, social justice: the millenniumdevelopment goal for gender equality in education. International Journal ofEducational Development 25, 111–122.

Unterhalter, E., 2003. Education Capabilities and Social Justice. Background PaperCommissioned for the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2003/4 – The Leap toEquality. UNESCO, Paris.

Walker, M., 2005. Amartya Sen’s Capability approach and education. EducationalAction Research 13 (1), 103–110.

Warwick, D.P., Reimers, F., 1995. Gender and achievement. In: Hope or Despair?Learning in Pakistan’s Primary Schools. Praeger, London.