Promoting Gender Inclusive Governance to Deliver Better Education in Nepal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23918/ijsses.v6i1p83Keywords:
Gender Inclusion, Participation, School Governance, Ethnography, School Management CommitteeAbstract
With inclusion agenda gaining currency in public policy discourse, women representation has now been ensured in public institutions, including schools, in Nepal. Informed by the concepts of representation and participation, this paper argues that though women’s participation in decision-making has received significant attention across the world, there are less opportunities for female to engage in governance and decision-making in Nepali community schools. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to examine what perspectives School Management Committee (SMC) members hold towards inclusion of female members. Employing interview and observation techniques during six months of ethnographic fieldwork, I collected data from six members in the SMC (including three female) from a community secondary school in rural Kaski. The findings highlight some surfacing inclusion issues in school governance which are contestable. The study concludes that though descriptive representation of female is ensured, female are yet to ensure their substantive representation in the school board.
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