Education Education An approach to some basic Indicators for ...

2 Catalog of indicators Introduction 1.1. What are gender indicators?Various conceptions have been created when it come to definition of indicator. CIDA (1997)defines it as “...a pointer. It can be a measurement, a number, a fact, an opinion or aperception that points at a specific condition or situation, and measures changes in thatcondition or situation over time”.“An indicator is an item of data that summaries a large amount of information in a singlefigure, in such a way as to give an indication of change over time, and in comparison to anorm”, Tony Beck (1999).Despite these slight differences, the definitions share the same characteristic: an indicator isa tool for measuring a phenomenon (a specific situation/opinion/perception) with or withoutits changes overtime.A Gender indicator 2 is a kind of indicator that measures gender-related changes within asociety with time perspective. The term gender indicator separates measure between menand women on certain indicator to compare the changing trend of both sexes. It addressesthe gender gaps and inequalities sought to be redressed, requires the collection of data,disaggregated by sex, as well as by age and socio-economic and ethnic groups, taken intoaccount a long-term perspective (i.e., social change takes time); and use participatoryapproaches (UNESCO, 2003). In this case the indicators are tools and analysis that will be thebasis for visualizing the deficiencies and the improvements of the system and understandhow they affect women specifically. They also provide a situation analysis, a look of realitytoward implementing development dynamics.Thus, gender indicators are essential tools to be used in any project, program, and policy toevaluate the outcome of gender-focused and mainstream interventions, assess challenges tosuccess, and adjust program and policies, and activities to better achieve gender equalitygoals and reduce adverse impacts on women and men. It's also important in that it build thecase for taking gender (in)equality seriously, for enabling better planning and actions bygender and non-gender specialists, and for holding institutions accountable to theircommitments on gender. Gender indicators can also make activities visible in which one ofthe sexes/genders may predominate because of gender norms; they may show the ambitsrequiring from political intervention.Gender indicators, as the rest of indicators, shall contain three characteristics:- they should be able to measure what it’s wanted to be measured,- they should be able to explain those aspects of reality that are wanted to bemeasured, and- they should be able to measure exactly what it’s wanted to be measured and whatit’s important.2 Sometimes they’re called “Gender-­‐responsible” or “gender-­‐sensitive” indicators – and they’re definitions can take us into confusion, since some take into mind gender based relations and others only produce sex disaggregated data, which doesn’t mean that gender relations are taken into mind.