Counting on education data to help build gender equality in and through education: participation and progress in measurement at the global, national and local level
Held at the UKFIET Conference 2025, Mobilising knowledge, partnerships, and innovations for sustainable development through education and training. University of Oxford Examination Schools, Oxford, UK, 16 – 18 September 2025.
This symposium brought together researchers and practitioners working on the Global Platform for Gender Equality in and through Education, and the AGEE (Accountability for Gender Equality in Education) project. Together, they reflect on efforts in a range of different settings to build participatory processes that consider how gender data are positioned, used and critiqued in building education systems. Three papers discuss how new frameworks have been used in different contexts (local, national and cross-national) to support discussions and processes aimed at improving accountability and resource allocation for gender equality and sustainable educational development.
Chair: Elaine Unterhalter (UCL)
Discussant: Fabricia Devignes (UNESCO)
Helen Longlands (UCL), Esthery Kunkwenzu (University of Malawi), Cresti Fitriana (UNESCO), Elaine Unterhalter (UCL), Lebo Moletsane (University of KwaZulu-Natal), Meaghan Malloy (UCL): The challenge of local knowledge about gender and education: Reflections on using the AGEE process in local settings
This paper reports on the work of two AGEE projects that have worked to connect local knowledge with national and cross national processes of reviewing indicators and data on gender equality in and through education. Bridging AGEE is a partnership between UCL, UNESCO and University of Malawi, working in Indonesia, Malawi and Kenya. It addresses some of the disconnections and bridge the gaps between different ways of thinking about gender, groups who promote these approaches, and practices associated with local, national and global processes for data generation and use in the area of gender, education and inclusion. Climate AGEE is a partnership between UCL and University of KwaZulu-Natal. The focus of this project is to support women’s leadership to amplify education demands in areas suffering some of the harsh effects of climate change and support work to hold national and provincial government to account for promises on climate justice and education. Here, participants in both projects reflect analytically on how local knowledge about gender and education data needs, assessments of current data and demands for additional data have played out in different settings. The paper highlights the multiplicity and intersectionality of the ways that local knowledge about gender and education is articulated, and how some of the issues of the rationale for connection to national and global processes have been articulated and discussed.
Rosie Peppin Vaughan (UCL), Caine Rolleston (UCL), Elaine Unterhalter (UCL), Helen Longlands (UCL), Gonzalo Guerrero (UCL) and Eliza Ngutuku (UCL): Measuring what matters for gender equality in education: Reflections on promise, purpose and participation in constructing a cross national indicator dashboard
This paper sets out the work done at the cross-national level in the AGEE project to create a series of national dashboards for gender equality in education. We present a novel approach to holistic measurement of ‘gender equality in education’ (GEE), bringing together a broad range of indicators across six domains derived from a participatory process which better reflects the complexity and nuance of gender inequalities ‘in and through’ education. We construct a composite indicator of GEE alongside a cross-national dashboard of indicators which can be used to benchmark and track progress towards GEE both nationally and globally. We reflect on the strengths and challenges of the approach – conceptual, empirical and political, centring on the learning from ‘process’ (global, national and local) as well as result in the development of the AGEE measures.
Elspeth McOmish (UNESCO) and Rosie Peppin Vaughan (UCL): The global terrain of accountability for gender equality in education
This paper reported on an initiative to improve global data on gender equality in education, working with a diverse range of actors in the international education data ecosystem. Focusing on the significance of data in improving accountability on commitments to gender equality in education, the paper reflects on the experiences of the Global Platform as a collaboration of different actors and entities in the Accountability Dashboard, bringing together existing and new sources of information on initiatives and policies. It also outlines several innovative and exploratory efforts to improve the range of measures available cross-nationally, with the aim of strengthening global monitoring of national commitments and informing the post-SDG education measurement agenda.