Adapting Ethiopian curricula to increase female labour market participation
Throughout the world, the number of female students in vocational education is lower than the number of male students, especially in the so-called “hard-skill streams”.
In the so-called ‘hard-skill or STEM streams’ in vocational training, the number of female students is often lower than the number of male students. In Ethiopa, we see that women experience barriers in their transition to the labour market. We can talk about a ‘leaky pipeline’ phenomenon in which female graduates do not enter their first job in the field that they studied for. Notwithstanding, the economic situation in Ethiopia and the survival of small and medium enterprises can benefit greatly from increased participation of women in the labour market.
TVET institutions can help women who participate in their training programmes to make the transition to the labour market easier. To do this, the vocational education institutes must work closely together with stakeholders from the business community. CINOP assists the Bahir Dar Poly Technic College with this within the project: ‘Security and stability for women in the workforce: a challenge for TVET institutes’.
Recently, CINOP and Cordaid organised a co-creation workshop in cooperation with:
- management and trainers of Bahir Dar Poly Technic institute,
- current male and female students,
- and stakeholders from the business community.
During this workshop, the participants developed practical plans on how both vocational education institutes and companies in Bahir Dar can better adapt their learning programmes to female trainees and employees. The focus of the workshop was on:
- understanding the barriers female students and graduates experience in their transfer to the labour market
- analysing possibilities to make cooperative training more gender-responsive. (Cooperative training is a programme in which Bahir Dar Poly technic and industry collaborate for on-the-job learning opportunities of students)
- To draw up practical steps that the participating teachers and industry representatives can take to make their school/company more gender-responsive.
This is a TMT project within the Orange Knowledge Programme, managed by Nuffic and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
