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Curriculum development

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Although an approach like the one proposed has a clear feature of revision and creation of new didactic methodologies, it goes beyond them, it implies a change in the training methods and promotes the incorporation of structural changes in the pedagogic conceptions and practices. It calls for long term cultural, personal and corporate changes. Briefly: gender training is first and foremost self learning, learning to relearn in which the learning subject is the person herself, it is the personal experience which becomes an issue and material for a critical analysis at first and then a propositional one.

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It is therefore an unending process, which is spiral-like and constantly being revised. Accepting and thinking about training throughout life and outside the classroom; identifying the knowledge we put into practice, that is, competencies; questioning technical know-how when it becomes obsolete and insufficient; working with the existing differences and those differences generated by the market or the institution itself and reinforced by the instructor, acknowledging the value of their own activity depending on their own contributions or restraints in constant interaction with others, are only a few examples of the deep transformations which need to be processed and of the need to understand the same as a gradual process. Undoubtedly, the most affected area and that with which most deeply impacts this process is Curricular Development, the component in charge of the technical and pedagogic aspects of the teaching- learning process, and particularly, of the constant updating of specialities and profiles so that they may respond to the double pertinence. With this belief in mind, the implementation strategy must be focused around two main management mechanisms: carrying out meetings for exchange and reflection from time to time, aimed at recovering know-how and the collective building of knowledge and a systematic training project for protagonists to develop a logic of the process and a spiral advance. Advance and progress are only measured in terms of continuing revision, maturation and enrichment of the proposals. This belief is present in the proposed model, as from the name of the component itself: Methodologies and instruments for revising and updating curricular development and for teacher training. The lines of actions developed were the following: Creation and validation of methodologies and materials for competency-based training and gender perspective curricular development; Development and implementation of methodologies and materials for personal training regarding gender and the proposed methodologies; Curricula review according to the gender approach Since the aim is to focus on the person and his context and, therefore, on the mainstreaming of the gender perspective and to promote the interaction between all institutional policies and practices with the productive and social environment, after an exploration, development and experimentation process of focuses and methodologies, FORMUJER adopted the gender focus and competency-based training as the conceptual and methodological framework of its proposal and in order to comply with the final aim which is to improve people's employability, especially that of women who are in a situation of poverty and vulnerability. Professional or labour competency-based training is understood as the process during which curricular designs, didactic materials, classroom activities and practices are carried out, with the aim of developing the participant's set of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes which people combine and use to solve problems regarding their performance at work, according to criteria or standards derived from the professional area. Gender and competency-based training approaches enable: The double pertinence to the context and the beneficiary population, assuming training as a tool for the promotion of social and economic development which is more inclusive and equitative; People's integral acknowledgement, considering and acknowledging the value of their diversity and the reality which enables and favours exchange and learning, and above all, strengthening the OP's design and management competencies; Increasing the value of the different learning and knowledge production areas; facilitating the construction of personal paths which are adapted to diverse interests; Making operational the value of employability through training as a quality criterion, since it allows for the requirements and conditions for women's and men's professional performance to be established in diverse contexts; Visualising and then removing barriers and inequalities which are due to stereotyped views of the role of people according to their sex, origin, social situation, knowledge, etc. and which prevent their free access to training and work options. The crossing of both focuses is systematically applied to all stages of curricular planning and this is what allows for a training supply with double pertinence to be established: towards the labour market's requirements and possibilities and towards the people's profiles, considered in their gender condition and acknowledging the value of their know how and knowledge as competencies to be employed when carrying out their jobs. The development or revision of a syllabus which incorporates gender and competence focuses allows for the following questions to be answered: who is trained?, what is she/he trained as?, what for?, who with?, how?, when? All of them include gender risks which interact with issues deriving from social, economic, educational and age profiles of the target population, to which it is necessary to pay special attention in order to be able to design proper didactic answers for the approach and attention thereof. This application demands an intensive training plan for planners, curriculum designers and teachers so that they may review their role, appropriate the focuses, apply the same, and be alert, not only during the design stages but in those of classroom practice, to the different expressions of the hidden curriculum in which gender markings are spread out beyond their intentional features, as well as all personal, relational, and cultural factors which foster and limit the employability and citizenship competencies of women and men. The strategies and methodologies for profile and requirement identification, as well as those for curricular transposition thereof and for personal training, may be very different, but they undoubtedly need to have only one direction: attention to double pertinence and expansion of opportunities.

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