Vol.

7 · June 2016 JPAIR Institutional Research is produced

Print ISSN 2244-1824 · Online ISSN 2244-1816 by PAIR, an ISO 9001:2008 QMS certified
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.7719/irj.v7i1.368 by AJA Registrars, Inc.

Implementation of Gender
and Development among Higher
Education Institutions:
Input to GAD Enhancement Program
ELMER M. ALBALADEJO
http://orcid.org 000-000-180-943-479
[email protected]
Capiz State University Main Campus
Roxas City, Philippines

ABSTRACT

Gender and Development (GAD) is a plan for development perspective

that recognizes the unequal status and situation of women and men in society.
Women and men have different development needs and interests as a result
of inequality, which is institutionalized and perpetuated by cultural, social,
economic and political norms, systems and structures. The descriptive research
investigated the facts related to GAD Implementation in HEIs using a researcher-
made questionnaire. Educational managers were “very aware” of the Republic
Act 7192, known as Women in Nation building implementation while faculty
members were only “moderately aware.” All HEIs agreed having encountered
problems in GAD implementation such as inadequate trainings/seminars, lack
of funding support, non-priority of GAD programs, limited collaboration of
institutions on GAD-related activities, and unsustainable implementation.
However, HEIs were aware that they have general and specific plans related to
GAD implementation. The difference was found between educational managers
and faculty members’ awareness level. Moreover, relationships were seen on the
selected profile variables of HEIs and status of GAD implementation. Results of
the study implied an input to GAD Enhancement program that will address the
gaps for a sustainable level of implementation among HEIs.

15
JPAIR Institutional Research

Keywords – Social Science, Gender and Development, Higher Education

Institutions, descriptive research, Region VI, Philippines

INTRODUCTION

Asian migrants in America such as Vietnamese and Koreans construct Asian

and Asian American cultural worlds as quintessentially and uniformly patriarchal
and fully resistant to change. In contradistinction, mainstream white America
is constructed as the prototype of gender equality. Hence, Asian-American
and white American women serve in these accounts as uniform categorical
representations of the opposing forces of female oppression and egalitarianism.
The researchers consider how the relational construction of hegemonic and
subordinated femininities, as revealed through controlling images that denigrate
Asian forms of gender, contribute to the internalized oppression and shape the
doing of ethnicity (Pyke & Johnson, 2003). Hence, the researcher is interested
in finding out the implementation of Gender equality in the Philippines.
As a development approach, GAD seeks to equalize the status and condition
of and the relationship between women and men by influencing the processes
and outputs of policy making, planning, budgeting, implementation, and
monitoring and evaluation so that they would deliberately address the gender
issues and concerns affecting the full development of women.
The Gender and Development (GAD) policy is one of the most controversial
policies ever adopted by the Philippine government to promote the advancement
of women. Since 1986, the Philippine government has been actively promoting
gender, a policy that aims to eradicate gender inequalities and enable women and
men to equally contribute to and benefit from development (Contreras, 1998).
The strategy for implementing gender equality is called gender mainstreaming.
It is a strategy that aims to transform society and its institutions so they could
work for gender equality to integrate women’s concerns and experiences in
the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies, programs
and projects in all political, economic and social agenda. It is an approach that
situates gender equality issues at the center of broad policy decisions, institutional
structures and resource allocations, and includes women’s views and priorities in
making decisions about development goals and processes. It is about making
government work for the advancement of women. It is about enabling women
and men to develop their human potentials and enjoy mutually fulfilling relations
(Schalkwyk, Thomas & Woroniuk, 1996).

16
 At the agency level, gender mainstreaming means raising people’s GAD
awareness and building GAD-related capabilities; putting in place policies,
structures, systems, and mechanisms that would facilitate and institutionalize the
pursuit of gender equality and women’s empowerment; applying GAD-related
skills and tools to develop programs, activities and projects addressing gender
issues; continuously implementing, monitoring, evaluating and enhancing
the agency’s gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment efforts; and
incorporating GAD in all aspects of agency’s operations (Schalkwyk, et al., 1996).
Gender is an issue because fundamental differences and inequalities between
women and men exist. These differences and inequalities may manifest themselves
in different ways in specific countries or sectors.
Gender And Development (GAD) recognizes women as agents of
development, not merely as passive recipient of development assistance, gender
and development questions the relationship between women and men and
the gender rules that are ascribed to them. It sees the gender division of labor
as the root cause of inequality. It is, therefore, an approach to development
focusing on social economics and political structures and therefore questions
the current social economic and political structures that determine women and
men participate in, benefit from, and control resources and activities. Here lies
the social construction of gender and the assignment of roles, expectations and
responsibilities. A woman in relation to a man is the crux of this approach, which
questions the impact of social, economic and political structure.
The Gender and Development perspective recognizes that gender concerns
cut across discipline in all areas of development. Therefore, this study addresses
towards the overarching ideologies and issues of GAD towards other disciplines.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The study aimed to investigate the extent of implementation of Gender

and Development mandate among Higher Education Institutions in the
Province of Capiz, Philippines. More specifically, the study sought to determine
the level of awareness and status of HEIs of RA 7192 on GAD programs; the
level of assessment of educational managers and faculty members in GAD
implementation; the problems encountered by educational managers and faculty
members in GAD implementation; the a difference and relationship on the level of
awareness between educational managers and teachers in GAD implementation;
and recommend an enhancement program for GAD implementation in HEIs.

17
JPAIR Institutional Research

FRAMEWORK

Theory on Gender Equality. Gender Equality is a theory has qualitative

and quantitative aspects. The quantitative aspect implies an equal distribution
women and men in all areas of society such as education, work, recreation, power,
and position. However, the qualitative implies that knowledge and experiences
and values of both women and men are given equal rights and used to enrich and
direct all social areas and endeavor.

Theory of Constraints. The relationship of this study to the Theory of

Constraints is more on the series of decision-making techniques. Secondly, it is
applied to production, planning, and control, project management, accounting
and performance measurements, particularly in the educational system with the
application of cause-and-effect analysis.

Theory on Gender Mainstreaming. The theory on Gender Mainstreaming is

also adapted to anchor this study. Gender mainstreaming is a contested concept
and practice. It is the re-invention, restructuring, and re-branding of a key part
of feminism in the contemporary era. It is both a new form of gendered political
and policy practice, and it is a new gendered strategy for theory development. As
a practice, gender mainstreaming is intended as a way of improving the effectivity
of pair policies by making visible the gendered nature of assumptions, processes,
and outcomes.

Theory of Change. The present study also finds its way to consideration of
the Theory of Change, which postulates that building blocks in any system is
expected to bring about long term goal (Anderson, 2005). These blocks that also
refer to outcomes, results, accomplishments, or preconditions which are depicted
on a map known the pathway of change or change framework, are the graphic
presentations of the change process.

The study looked into the implementation of Gender and Development

(GAD) Mandate among Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) in the Province
of Capiz and consequently provide enhancement program to improve its
implementation. It is assumed further that whatever weaknesses is seen in the
process of evaluation is given consideration in training programs that could bring
about positive change in GAD implementation.

18
 METHODOLOGY

A descriptive research is designed to investigate and analyze facts relevant

to the implementation of gender and development among HEIs as well as
investigates relationship between factors or variables. The study was conducted
from November 2012 to January 2013 in the sixteen (16) Higher Education
Institutions in the Province of Capiz, Philippines.
The respondents of the study were the 170 educational managers and
252 faculty members of HEIs in the Province of Capiz, which were taken
through stratified random sampling. The respondents were made aware on
the confidentiality of their responses. Hence, ethical issues and concerns were
observed by the researcher.
A self-made questionnaire was subjected to content validation by the panel of
experts and was pretested. The pretest results were subjected to item analysis and
reliability, which is 94.4%. The data were processed using the Statistical Package
for Social Science. Frequency counts and percentages were used to describe the
profile of the respondents. The mean was used to find out the level of awareness
and status of GAD implementation; Chi-square for testing the hypotheses and in
determining the relationship between selected variables.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The study revealed the following significant findings: Generally, educational

managers were “aware’’ of RA 7192 that deals with Women in Development
and Nation-building, whereas, faculty members were “moderately aware” of this
Republic Act.
Respondents from 15 out of 16 HEIs perceived that their institutions follow a
general plan in the implementation of GAD programs, whereas 14 out of 16 HEIs,
perceived that their institutions follow a specific plan in the implementation of
GAD programs. A greater number of respondents from four of six private HEIs,
and six of 10 SUC’s attended GAD-related seminars and training. All of the
educational managers of the private HEIs and six of ten SUC’s had no idea if how
much was the budget allocated for GAD programs and activities.
Twenty-six out of 31 (83.9%) specified GAD-related activities were somehow
implemented by HEIs as perceived by their educational managers and faculty
members. Gender-related activities, in general, as perceived by the educational
managers and faculty members were “sometimes” held in their respective

19
JPAIR Institutional Research

institutions. In general, educational managers and faculty members were “highly

positive” on gender equality given to women in their respective institutions. The
results imply that the educational managers trust and give greater responsibilities
to women compared to men.
The top three problems met by the educational managers and faculty
members in the implementation of GAD programs were: the inadequacy of
training, seminars, workshops and conferences related to GAD; followed by the
lack of funding/budget support for GAD programs implementation; and GAD
programs are not the priority of the institution. It can therefore be said that GAD
related programs were given less attention by the institutions. Further, the results
imply that since there is a lesser awareness and implementation, institutions
should allocate minimum, if not maximum, funding to mobilize the GAD
programs and gain better appreciation among stakeholders of the institution.

Table 3. Mean response on awareness of educational managers and teachers on

RA 7192 on GAD Programs.
MEAN RESPONSE T-TEST
Item Statement EDUCATIONAL TEACHERS t-value Sig.
MANAGERS 2-tailed
Are you aware of RA 3.46 2.98 4.004** 0.000
7192?(Women in
Development and Nation
Building)
Women do not experience 3.98 3.77 2.028* 0.043
gender bias in school
regulations, circulars and
issuances.
**-highly significant

Results showed that mean responses between educational managers and

faculty members on awareness of RA 7192 or usually known as Women in
Development and Nation-Building were significantly different. There was a
significant relationship between HEIs selected profile variables and status of
GAD implementation.

20
 CONCLUSIONS

Educational managers and faculty members have different GAD

implementation awareness level. While most HEIs are aware that they have
general and specific plans related to GAD implementation, other HEIs admitted
they are not aware that they follow specific plans.
Only few institutions affirmed they have attended seminars related to GAD,
and about half of the HEIs have attended the seminar but failed to enumerate
them. Educational managers and faculty members are “highly positive” that
women are given equal rights for professional development, and they are smarter
like men who can perform their social, political, economic and cultural positions.
They further affirmed that women have equal opportunities to hold designations
and can effectively perform their functions in implementing, monitoring and
evaluating programs in the institutions, despite complexities they encountered
as women.
Educational managers and faculty members encounter similar problems
in GAD implementation like inadequacy of seminars, lack of budget support,
limited collaboration, poor sustainability, the reluctance of faculty members to
attend to programs related to it because their heads and executives are also not
supportive of its implementation. Educational managers have higher awareness
level than faculty members about GAD implementation.
Educational managers who were sent to GAD-related trainings/seminars
should conduct echo seminar to HEIs to improve the level of awareness and
the implementation of RA 7192. General and specific guidelines should be
disseminated, and faculty and staff should be informed of their roles in the
implementation of GAD programs. Gender equality issues should also be
discussed in HEIs so that its implementation will be fully understood. Problems
met by both educational managers and faculty members should be given
immediate attention by HEIs to improve the implementation of RA 7192.
The difference in the awareness level of educational managers and faculty
members could be remedied if proper dissemination of training and seminars
attended through echo-seminar during in-service seminars. HEIs must look into
GAD programs implementation in a holistic approach taking into consideration
the weaknesses of GAD implementation as reflected in the results and findings
of the study.
Highly important in the implementation of every program of the institution
is the allocation of funds. Programs like GAD should be allocated with at least

21
JPAIR Institutional Research

minimal funds to mobilize and be serving to the clientele and stakeholders. It

is not enough that the educational managers would only be aware by attending
seminars and trainings. They must transfer these knowledge to the students and
other constituents for implementation and practice. By doing so, there would be
an increase of awareness among multiple stakeholders.

TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH

The study could produce a policy manual on GAD programs to be implemented

by each HEI. Likewise, brochures on the designed programs anchored on GAD
can be distributed to both educational managers and faculty members. These
translated materials should be disseminated and impact evaluation should be
made.

LITERATURE CITED

Anderson, M. L. (2007). Chapter Five How to Study the Mind: An Introduction

to Embodied Cognition Michael L. Anderson. Brain development in learning
environments: Embodied and perceptual advancements, 65.

Chafe, W. H. (1976). Looking backward in order to look forward: Women,

work, and social values in America. Women and the American economy, 6-30.

Colinaries, N.E. 2010. 21st Century Trends, Issues and Challenges in Philippine
Education, National Bookstore, Navotas City. Retrieved December 20, 2013
from http://goo.gl/006wGA

Contreras, A.P. 1998. Towards a Gender-Sensitive Community –Based Forest

Management Program, Towards A Gender-Sensitive Workplace: Integrating
Women’s Concerns in the Occupational Safety and Health Standards,
NCRFW. Retrieved last November 3, 2015
http://goo.gl/medXT4

Pyke, K. D., & Johnson, D. L. (2003). Asian American women and racialized
femininities “Doing” gender across cultural worlds. Gender & Society, 17(1),
33-53.

22
Santos, A. F., Conda, E., & Natividad, M. D. F. (1999). Toward a Gender-response
Legislation: Basic applications (Vol. 2). National Commission on the Role of
Filipino Women (NCRFW).

Schalkwyk, J., Thomas, H., & Woroniuk, B. (1996). Mainstreaming: a strategy

for achieving equality between women & men: a think piece. Department for
Policy and Legal Services.

Torres, A., & Del Rosario, R. S. (1994). Gender and Development Making the
Bureaucracy Gender-responsive: A Sourcebook for Advocates, Planners, and
Implementors.

23