International Women's Day | Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress

International Women's Day

In 2024, the theme of this International Women’s Day is “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress”, which is aligned with the priority theme for the 68th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW-68). UNESCO highlights the urgency of accelerating the achievement of gender equality by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective at CSW-68. It also shares successful experiences and orientations for future actions.

On March 8 2024, the International Women's Day official UN commemoration will be held at UN Headquarters in New York. Centred on the theme "Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress", the event will bring together the UN system, Member States, civil society organisations, youth groups and others to emphasise the critical actions required to bridge gender gaps, highlight the urgent need for strategic investment in gender equality and women's empowerment, and showcase and celebrate key successes and best practices.

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Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality

Adhering to one of UNESCO's global priorities, "gender equality", the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) has been working closely around SDG 4 and maintaining the principle of "innovation and technology for gender equality". Specifically, UNESCO-ICHEI has endeavoured to realise SDG 4.3 to "ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university by 2030".

More importantly, UNESCO-ICHEI is deeply committed to digital transformation and innovation in higher education, working to mitigate gender disparities in education and empowering teaching personnel and students in developing countries to gain access to quality higher education with gender and socio-economic equity. In recent years, UNESCO-ICHEI has made remarkable progress in empowering women to access equitable and quality higher education. 

1

International Institute of Online Education (IIOE)

Since its launch in 2020, the International Institute of Online Education (IIOE) has provided services integrating courses, training, micro-certification, and toolkits to higher education institutions and teachers in developing countries, empowering more than 4,000 female teachers in 135 countries and regions in Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America. Among the Russian courses Media and Information Literacy produced by the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE), about 67% of IIOE trainees are women (42).

2

Her Voices in 2023 IIOE Global Partners Summit

In the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), higher education is undergoing deeper and broader transformation. From December 7 to 9, 2023, the IIOE Global Partners Summit brought together around 200 attendees from 28 countries, including many internationally influential female scholars and leaders in the field of higher education, to exchange and discuss AI technological governance, industry-academic partnership, policy framework, case sharing and other issues. 

 

Professor Cecilia Chan, the Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre, The University of Hong Kong, China

Whether AI is a game changer or a Pandora box, what really matters is our move as human and also our move as educators.

 

Professor Teresa Hattingh, the Engineering Education Specialist, Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

In the era of AI, educators need to change their mindset and rethink the role of teacher, technology, higher education institutions and knowledge.

 

Professor Paulina Pannen, the Senior Expert of Indonesia Cyber Education Institute (ICE-I), Indonesia

Teaching personnel play an important role and exert leadership in the digital transformation of higher education. AI can monitor students' learning progress and provide automated feedback in instruction, indicating the great potential to enhance teaching efficiency. 

3

The IIOE Global Webinar "Female Leadership in STEM" 

The IIOE Global Webinar "Gender Equality for Inclusive Higher Education: Female Leadership in STEM" was organised by UNESCO-ICHEI, IIOE Pakistan National Centre, and Lahore College for Women University (LCWU). This webinar advocates that promoting women's leadership and decision-making in the STEM field will change stereotypes in learning and the workplace as well as reshape the innovative ecosystem of technological development. The event was attended by 338 higher education teachers, experts, IT executives and others from 55 countries, who engaged in a lively discussion on professional development issues and solutions for women in STEM.

4

Females' Empowerment Practices in the Pioneer Award

The "International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO Higher Education Digitalisation Pioneer Case Award" (hereinafter referred to as "the Pioneer Award") aims to encourage and commend IIOE partner institutions in the world active exploration, innovation and practice in the field of digitalization of higher education through case sharing. Among the 22 award-winning cases of the inaugural Pioneer Awards, many have embodied the concept of gender equality. Here are some representative practices of women's empowerment.

Université numérique Cheikh Hamidou KANE (UN-CHK; formerly UVS, Virtual University of Senegal)

According to IMF, females (8%) have significantly fewer opportunities to receive tertiary education than males (13%) [1]. Université numérique Cheikh Hamidou KANE (UN-CHK; formerly UVS, Virtual University of Senegal) transforms the traditional university ecosystem by focusing on digital orientation and promotes the use of new technologies in education, such as the Open Digital Spaces (L' Espace numérique ouvert, ENO). There is a 55% female presence at UN-CHK, indicating that ENO can benefit communities and groups that are difficult to reach with traditional university education and create a friendly learning environment for females, thereby significantly increasing the proportion of females receiving higher education.

Ain Shams University, Egypt 

As the IIOE Egypt National Centre, Ain Shams University launched the "Empowering Higher Education Institutions for Digital Teaching and Learning in Egypt" project in collaboration with UNESCO-ICHEI, including organising "Digital Teaching Training Programs" for teaching personnel from national partner HEIs. Notable achievements include the participation of 63 teachers, of which 37 were females, constituting 64.7% of the total. The participants had diverse backgrounds, including computer and engineering, life science, medical and health, and humanities, enhancing the engagement and vitality of female teaching personnel in digital teaching.

Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST)

Based on international trends in online and blended learning and local need analysis, the Open Education Center of Mongolian University of Science and Technology (MUST-OEC), as IIOE National Centre, implemented this project in collaboration with UNESCO-ICHEI. The project successfully delivered five training modules related to blended teaching and learning. 322 teachers from six national universities participated in the modules, including 65 master teachers, of which 80% were females. 

Future Outlook

In the future, IIOE will further promote female teachers' participation in professional development activities by adapting to local contexts and actual needs, from design and implementation to evaluation and certification, etc. IIOE will also focus on the development of training on AI-related courses and enhance the capacity building of female teachers to integrate AI technologies into teaching and learning. In addition, UNESCO-ICHEI will maintain UNESCO's global priority of "gender equality" and continue to promote women's participation in educational empowerment activities in order to better achieve quality, equitable and inclusive higher education.

Reference

[1] International Monetary Fund (IMF). African Dept. Gender Gaps in Senegal: From Education to Labor Market.

https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/2019/028/article-A002-en.xml

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