April 2003

Report on Key Informant Workshop on Gender and Women in Development Studies in Distance Education Programmes in Southern India

29-31 October 2002
Coimbatore, India

The "Report on Key Informant Workshop" was issued following the Workshop on Gender and Women in Development Studies in Distance Education Programmes in South India which was held from 29-31 October 2002 in Coimbatore, India and Sponsored by FAO RAPS GAD Programme and Centre for Women's Studies, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women-Deemed University.

Distance Education can play an important interventionist role in enabling rural women to avail themselves of flexible options for learning that permits them to learn at their own pace, time and convenience. Distance Education in India has come a long way and has gradually moved from single print-mode to multi-channel mode of delivery. Distance education has incorporated many alternatives wherein one-way television and radio communication is being complemented and supplemented by two way interactive video and radio. Despite the successful implementation of the Distance Education Programmes (DEP) in India, the gender divide in the curricular component still persists.

While a very well developed system of agriculture education and a delivery system of open and distance education at both secondary and tertiary levels exist in India, programmes specifically targeted to serve the rural women remain inadequate compared to the needs of the day. Distance learning modality should therefore improve the outreach capabilities and the information education delivery system thereby adopting a broad framework, which would stand on three pillars-relevance, equity and excellence.

Against this backdrop, Avinashilingam Deemed University (ADU) organised a Key Informant Workshop on Gender and Women in Development Studies in Distance Education Programmes in Southern India from 29-31 October 2002 sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Directors of distance education programme from agricultural and other universities, Directors of Women's Studies Centre, representatives from different Training Centres and rural women participated in the workshop.

The workshop included theme paper presentations and institutional presentations by the member participants. The theme papers highlighted the core issues concerning distance education and examined the potential distance education to address current educational gender and rural and urban divide in education. The institutional presentations described the distance education programmes and rural education outreach and training offered by the respective Universities in Southern region. In addition, key findings of the southern institutional survey as synthesis of content analysis of distance education programmes completed by ADU as well as FAO resource paper were also presented.

The meeting agreed that distance education modality could play a vital role in empowering rural women (both farm and non-farm). Based on the ideas information in theme papers and institutional overviews, the participants held discussions. Such participatory cross - disciplinary dialogue resulted in suggestions leading to constructive recommendations.

The recommendations that emerged are:

• Distance education courses should be designed to serve the rural women (both farm and non-farm) that would improve their skills and abilities leading to holistic development.
• A core course on gender and women's concerns should be offered to fulfil the objectives of gender mainstreaming.
• All the course materials should be translated into local languages to cater to the needs of the rural women.
• User-friendly audio-visual materials and e-learning tools should be designed for the rural women.
• Appropriate program methodologies should be selected to disseminate information on distance education to rural women through street play and folk media, exhibitions and distribution of handbills.
• Stages of socialisation, social issues and problems, women in social institutions and policies and programmes for women with special focus on reproductive health care and rights should be incorporated in the core course content. As distance education is common to men and women, it becomes mandatory that the core course be offered to both.
• Since fees serve as a barrier to enrolment, specific modalities should be identified for altering the fee structure. Special measures should be taken for providing scholarship to rural women.
• Annual workshops should be organised to formulate new strategies, thereby restructuring the curricula based on the emerging needs. The courses offered to rural women should cover agriculture and allied activities, health, nutrition and sanitation, skills for non-farm management, energy and fuel management and childcare and management.
• The Food and Agriculture Organization should act as a nodal agency to feed the information about distance education to the rural and farm women through ICTs.

For more information, contact: Revathi.Balakrishnan@fao.org