access to compulsory education
Seven countries have planned to introduce new legislation in this area that would address, to some extent, the problems of access that were presented in section 3.3.1 above and Chapter 2 (see Table 3.4 below).126 However, as discussed in Section 3.3.1 multiple discrimination - to a certain extent - remains unaddressed in some Member States.
Table 3.4 Anticipated legal developments in this area
Country Anticipated legal development
Austria The Gender and School unit at the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture (BMUKK) is currently putting together a new model for textiles and design and technology classes that would make both subjects compulsory for all pupils. Its model is expected to be announced by the end of January 2011 and a legal decision taken in 2011. Furthermore, there is new legislation for universities that includes a compulsory module on gender studies and mainstreaming in teacher training. This module is currently being developed.
Bulgaria In April 2010 a public consultation on the draft School Education Act was launched by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Science. The text of the draft legislation includes provisions on the prohibition of wearing religious symbols at school. The legislation has not yet been passed by parliament. Belgium In forthcoming legislature, the Flemish government will draw up a new
gender action plan that will be implemented by the Minister of Education. It is expected that, among other things, policy proposals will concern the diversification of the workforce in the education sector.
Czech Republic
▪
One of the priorities of Ministry of Education concerning equal opportunities is to use the Framework Educational Programmes, as well as other teaching and pedagogical materials, to change the stereotypical view of the male and female roles in the society and foster the principle of equal opportunities.127▪
In addition, the Ministry of Education intents to develop a methodology to assess school and school facilities from the aspect of gender equality, and incorporate it into monitoring agenda of Czech school inspection.Denmark In December 2010 the Minister of Education, proposed that the law of public schools would be reformed providing schools with the opportunity to separate boys and girls in classes for shorter or longer periods of the school year. The Minister also proposed that classes could be streamed by educational achievement and that the average class size could increase from an upper limit of 28 pupils to an upper limit of 32 pupils.128
Luxembourg In April 2010, the Luxembourgish Government presented a Bill in order to amend the law of 21 December 2007 implementing Directive 2004/113/EC,
126
National reports were last updated in November 26, 2010.
127
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. Framework Educational Programme for Basic Education (as of 2010). Available at: http://www.msmt.cz/areas-of-work/basic-education
128
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Country Anticipated legal development
to extend its scope of application to education (among other fields) by deleting the reference to media, publicity and education in the list of fields not explicitly covered by the law (Article 3 (4))
This proposal was sent by Ms Françoise Hetto-Gaasch, Minister for Equal Opportunities to the Chamber of Deputies (Chambre des Députés) in April 2010. In July 2010, the Chamber of salaried workers (Chambre des Salariés) transmitted its agreement to the Chamber of Deputies.
Further reforms of the educational system will be introduced in Luxembourg in the next years (pilots are to be introduced in a small number of secondary schools in 2011 and legislative work is expected to start in 2012), which may encompass some transversal aspects related to gender equality, although this is not a core objective of the reform.
Romania A proposal for a new Law of Education is currently under debate. The proposal replicates the general anti-discrimination provisions from the previous Law of Education introduced in 1995. The draft law in its current form strictly forbids any kind of discriminations in access to education, irrespective of the criteria.
3.7
Summary of findings
In this chapter we provided an overview of the European Union and national legislative framework to promote gender equality and prohibit sex discrimination in education. Section 3.2 provided an overview of EU legislative provisions concerning antidiscrimination and the remainder of the chapter focused on national legislation.
As demonstrated above, even though there are no legislative measures that prohibit sex
discrimination in the field of compulsory education in the EU, relevant provisions exist in the vast majority of Member States.
Most EU Member States have constitutional guarantees and legislative provisions to prohibit sex discrimination in access to education. In the majority of countries prohibition of this form of
discrimination is explicit in others it is implicit. Even in countries where sex discrimination in access to education is not explicitly prohibited, claimants can bring claims of sex discrimination in
education. Exemptions to the application of the law exist in many cases and the nature of exemptions can influence rulings and decisions. For example in an Irish case a girl was denied access to a boys‟ primary school and the Equality Tribunal found in favour of the defendant (the school) due to its status as a single sex educational establishment.
The prohibition of multiple discrimination is not common in Member States‟ legislation. Legislation prohibits discrimination based on more than one of the prohibited grounds in only five Member States. However, claimants can bring claims in court on the grounds of multiple discrimination.
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4
The non-legislative measures and activities to ensure equality
of opportunity in compulsory education
4.1
Introduction
The aim of this section is to describe key non-legislative measures Member States have taken to address sex discrimination in access to compulsory education. As such, the current research does not aim to fully catalogue all the existing non-legislative measures associated with ensuring gender equality in education, but focuses on identifying non-legislative measures linked specifically to access to schools, courses, educational activities or facilities, course material and a gender-fair admissions procedure.
Section 4.2 provides details of the non-legislative measures identified in the Member States; Section 4.3 presents the main related priorities at the national (and regional) level; Sections 4.4 to 4.6 present examples of projects in each one of the priority areas and the remainder of this chapter explores the relationship between non-legislative measures and the problems identified in Chapter 2.