MARCH 1, 2019

Sexism-Free Education: Government launches campaign to encourage gender equity in the classroo

Chile’s Education Minister, together with the ministers for Women and Gender Equity and Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, presented the new Education Ministry campaign “Sexism-Free Education” at Liceo Profesional Abdón Cifuentes. The initiative promotes teaching without gender biases within the framework of the Education with Gender Equity Work Plan.

“We want to guarantee that boys and girls have equal learning opportunities. The most important part of this is unbiased work by teachers in the classroom”, remarked Education Minister Marcela Cubillos at the launch of the new “Sexism-Free Education” campaign, which forms part of the “Education with Gender Equity Work Plan”.

The Education with Gender Equity Work Plan, which was launched in January, includes three main areas:

1. Quality with Equity in the Classroom

2. More Vocations and Opportunities

3. Zero Tolerance for Gender Violence

“Sexism-Free Education” is one of the initiatives that the Education Ministry will implement as part of the first main area. The initiative will be extended to over 11,000 schools across Chile and is composed of three graphic posters, each of which has a specific message directed at teachers, who are invited to educate in equality.

The graphic posters were presented at a discussion attended by teachers from Liceo Profesional Abdón Cifuentes in Santiago, accompanied by Women and Gender Equity Minister Isabel Plá and Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation Minister Andrés Couve.

Campaign objectives

The objective of the campaign is to encourage teachers to reflect on and identify sexist attitudes and actions in the classroom, especially biases and stereotypes that are reproduced in pedagogical interactions between teachers and students.

In regard to the need for the initiative, Minister Plá said, “We believe that education plays a key role in the changes that we are promoting in order to create an inclusive Chile that is free of sexist biases and that offers gender equity”.

Along those lines, the Minister added that, “Teachers play a leading role in this area through their work in the classroom, educating children so that they live in a society that respects equal rights and creates the conditions for both women and men to progress, eradicating stereotypes that are still rooted in our culture. When they reach adulthood, those frequently become insurmountable barriers for women”.

For his part, Minister Couve noted that this type of conduct must be eradicated from the classroom, which is “particularly important in the sciences, where we have to take steps to ensure that more women choose to follow scientific careers”.

“That also implies working from our own ministry, so that it does not have such biases, as well as to hold competitions and make the sciences equitably accessible to men and women”, he concluded.

Campaign information

Information about the campaign can be downloaded for free at equidaddegenero.mineduc.cl. The site also contains links to studies that support the importance of providing education without gender biases.