New Delhi: Women and girls are under-represented in school textbooks or when included, they are depicted in traditional roles in many countries across the globe, according to the Global Education Monitoring Report by UNESCO.
The annual report’s fourth edition, which was published recently, pointed out that not only the number of images of female characters included in the textbooks was very less in comparison to images of males, women were also represented in “less prestigious” occupations and as introverts and passive.
While showing men as doctors and women as nurses, only portraying women in subjects pertaining to food, fashion or entertainment, showing women in voluntary roles and men in paid jobs were among the gender stereotypes pointed out in the report.
The Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM Report) is developed by an independent team and published by UNESCO. It has the official mandate of monitoring progress in meeting the Sustainable Development Goal on education, according to a report in Hindustan Times.
The report provides an in-depth analysis of key factors for exclusion of learners in education systems worldwide, including background, identity and ability, gender, age, location, poverty, disability, ethnicity, indigeneity, language, religion, migration or displacement status, sexual orientation or gender identity expression, incarceration, beliefs and attitudes.