GIME Conference Report

I think every time I come to one of these meetings, I feel that things have changed amazingly…gender links is building momentum that is irresistible. -David Kerr, University of Botswana

The Gender in Media Education Conference was aimed at exploring the findings of the Gender in Media Education Audit (GIME), and collecting feedback from individual institutions on their reports. The conference spanned two full days, from March 29 À“ 30, 2010 and was attended by 39 participants from 14 countries. These participants comprised media educators, intergovernmental agencies, NGOs, GMDC Advisory Group members and Gender Links staff.

The participants highlighted the following key challenges during the meeting:

–       Gender is not covered in curriculum policies at institutional or departmental level.
–       There are very few institutions with policies or other special measures to achieve gender equality.
–       Only thirty-three percent of the institutions have sexual harassment policies.
–       The majority of staff and students have little to no knowledge of the policy and how it should be applied is low among staff and students.
–       Males comprise the majority of the academic staff, while females predominate as students.
–       Sixty-two percent of the respondents said that gender is not considered in curriculum policies and processes at institutional or departmental level.
–       Media and journalism students receive very little theoretical grounding in gender.
–       Attention to the gender is dependent upon lecturers’ own knowledge and commitment to mainstreaming gender in-depth in the course content.
–       Gender is missing from course material
–       Gender is not incorporated as a standard in any systematic way in the media education and journalism training departments’ assessments of courses.
–       Gender is not a standard in the assessment of staff performance.
–       Academic research could be improved

See attachment for full report.

Download : GIME Conference Report, 2010