On August 10, 2012, Promundo held, in partnership with the Anísio Teixeira Institute – a body of the Bahia Department of Education, responsible for training human resources in the state's public education network –, the closing meeting of the first class formed by the Gender Equity in Schools Portal. Entitled Meeting Portal Gender Equity at School: experiences and possibilities for action, the meeting brought together around 30 people, including IAT graduates and professionals.
At the closing event, in addition to certification, course participants were invited to give their opinion on different aspects of the course and offered suggestions for future editions, but they also spoke about their personal experience on the topics, discussed the tools and the contribution of the course to your professional activities. The results indicated were quite positive. One of the participants stated: “No one is leaving the way they came in”.
The teachers reaffirmed their motivation and highlighted the contribution of the course in this aspect in creating activities aimed at promoting the health and sexual and reproductive rights of adolescents and young people, confronting prejudices and taboos and encouraging care.
“I had never taken a course in this format before. With images that move, videos that work on the theme with creativity, clicks on objects such as books, arrows and numerals, indicating suggestions or answers based on the current reality. This approach avoided tiring and tiring readings, providing more enjoyable learning.”
PEGE teachers and students Maria da Conceição Marques and Doralice Ferrari presented their course completion projects with activities to be worked on at school. The projects created based on the possibility of collective learning and professional and personal experiences were mentioned by professor Márcia Barreiros, from the State University of Feira de Santana, as clear results of the course's success.
Discussion of results
To discuss this experience with the Salvador pilot class, the results of the evaluations carried out by Promundo on the course were presented, which included: the content, the tools, the possibilities for interaction and the suggestions for activities made available by PEGE. A highlight was the format in which the classes are presented (slides with animation and possibilities for interaction), highlighted by the participants as one of the most interesting and innovative features of the course. There was even a request for them to be made available for use by teachers in the classroom.
Some of the challenges indicated reveal difficulties inherent to distance learning. One of the main suggestions to motivate and increase interaction between students is to hold face-to-face meetings, proposed at different times: at the beginning of the course, after each of the six modules, at the end of the course.
Promundo is trying to evaluate, through PEGE, the impact of a distance learning course on changing perceptions and attitudes related to so-called traditional gender norms. Thus, before the start of classes (September 2011) and after their completion (June 2012), course participants participated in an opinion survey based on the Gender Equality Scale for Men (GEM Scale) on topics such as division of domestic tasks and childcare, sexual relationships, health and prevention of diseases, violence and homophobia.
Finally, learning from the exchange of experiences and suggestions given by colleagues, the exercise of writing, the possibility of expressing oneself freely in debate forums and reviewing experiences, concepts and opinions were highlighted as positive results of PEGE both in written evaluations and in the debate at the closing meeting.
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