The Commonwealth of Learning (COL), in collaboration with Sri Lanka’s University Grant Commission (UGC), conducted a three-day train the trainer workshop on Gender Mainstreaming in Higher Education in Colombo, Sri Lanka in June 2018. The workshop was aimed at supporting universities in the country to develop an effective draft action plan to strengthen gender mainstreaming in their institutions.

UGC’s Director: Center for Gender Equality and Equity, Professor Uma Coomaraswamy, welcomed 26 participants from seven Sri Lankan universities. She informed them about the functions of the Commission and expressed appreciation to COL for supporting gender mainstreaming in the country’s higher education institutions.

The workshop helped participants to recapture important gender concepts and relate it to higher education in the country. Topics discussed included gender analysis frameworks to assess gender issues in higher education, international tools and good practices to mainstream gender in universities, and adapting gender mainstreaming to the Sri Lankan context.

COL supports the institutional capacity of its partner institutions to mainstream gender equality in the planning, development, and monitoring and evaluation of learning programmes.