Training for the Non-Formal Education (NFE) material developers for developing gender sensitive and locally relevant NFE materials

The Literacy and NFE programmes should take into consideration the local context of Nepal. Recognizing the need local governments have also started to prioritize the use of local mother tongues language in local development programmes too. In this regard, the curricula and the materials for adult education programmes needs to be adapted to the local context in a gender sensitive manner. The NFE service providers, curriculum and materials developers needs to be supported to develop their capacity in delivering inclusive and locally relevant literacy and NFE programmes, particularly to women and girls. Therefore, localized curriculum is essential for addressing the local community’s needs and their unique issues.

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) has strongly stressed on the need to develop a localized curriculum as well. Moreover, the document has determined “the provision of local need-based learning” as a guiding principle for curriculum development of education programmes (MoEST 2020). Despite the availability of numerous literacy-based curriculum materials, quality content that includes the locally relevant and gender-sensitive aspects, is still an issue. Against this backdrop, UNESCO as the lead agency in NFE and LLL in Nepal plans to support the country by developing a training manual for the NFE curriculum and material developers to develop locally relevant and gender sensitive NFE materials. Based on this training manual, UNESCO in collaboration with Center for Education and human resource development (CEHRD)   organized a 5-day residential  capacity building workshop targeting NFE curriculum and material developers for producing gender sensitive and locally relevant materials on NFE and LLL from Local and provincial level . This manual has been   developed through technical assistance from UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL). The training manual has been contextualized in context of Nepal through the selected expert review.