The Zainab Conference on women in education in Jordan was held at the University of Jordan (UJ) on Saturday, April 6th, under the patronage of the Jordanian Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Prof. Walid Maani.
The Conference, which was organized by the Solidarity Is Global Institute (SIGI) in partnership with Hivos and the support of the MOFA of the Netherlands in cooperation with the Center for Women's Studies at the University, addressed role of women and challenges that Women face in the education sector.
The Conference is part of the Women Empowerment for Leadership project, supported by the Hivos organization, and part of a series of specialized conferences organized by 'Solidarity' to highlight the work of women in various sectors and areas, including the "Anisa" conference on Jordanian women in the medical and health professions and "Leila Baqili" conference about Jordanian women in the financial and banking professions.
The Conference highlighted the Ministry of Education's Strategy for Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Education 2018-2022, which aims to guide and support the MoE’s efforts to ensure that gender inequalities in education are identified and appropriate interventions to address them are implemented.
The first session discussed two papers mainly focusing on the 'Goal 4' of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), "Ensuring a quality, fair and inclusive education for all", the reality of education of women's with disabilities, and women's literacy.
The second session shed light on Queen Rania Award for Excellence in Education (QRA), the Vocational Training Cooperation's project to promote female participation, and the 2017 report of the Association of Jordanian Women Academies.
The event was named after Zainab Abu Ghanimah, a Jordanian teacher who was born in the early 1900s and chose to pursue her education in a time during which women were solely meant to get married and stay at home.
Abu Ghanimah and fellow females in her community founded feminist associations in 1945 in Irbid that stood up against an unjust legislation that prohibited married women from working. Ten years later, the legislation was finally amended and married women regained their right to work.