Stories

Teaching Gender Equality to Children through Early Childhood Education Program

Basic knowledge about gender equality can be taught to boys and girls at school.  Early childhood education programs or PAUD (Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini) KEPAL in Lampung, Sumatera, has started doing so for the last two years. KEPAL (Kesatuan Perempuan Lampung Utara or Unity of Women in North Lampung), is an institution fostered by Damar, PERMAMPU local partner.

Teachers in this PAUD teach the children about gender equality through games and color. For example: they teach that pink is not only for girls, or cooking is not only for women, et cetera.

This PAUD was established in 2014 by women who are members of KEPAL  in Kuta Alam Village, North Lampung, Sumatera.  All of them have already passed some trainings such as gender equality, social analysis with feminist perspective, anti-violence, women leadership and organization. In the beginning, it had 28 students and four teachers.  They have been teaching gender equality since the school was established.  Boys and girls are taught to avoid gender stereotypes, using color (for example, pink morbidly only for girls), or toys (toy car only for boys and dolls for girls) and gender roles (cooking is only for girls).

The teaching is inserted in the formal curriculum of early childhood education that has been provided by the Department of Education. The material is obtained from the trainings they have received previously, and is adjusted to the educational method for children. To keep children interested, the teachers use a lot of games.

Until now, there is no complaint received from the children parents.  Instead, parents are optimistic that this basic knowledge will prepare their children to be able to respect the division of roles between men and women when they grow up.

Reported by Marie Astrid Wijaya – Partner Engagement Officer, MAMPU