The Culture and Education Ministry has received an award from UNESCO for introducing a gender equality program as part of early childhood education (PAUD). 

A member of the jury for the UNESCO Prize for Girls' and Women's Education, Aicha Bah Diallo, said few countries in the world  introduced gender concepts from early childhood. "That is why Indonesia's PAUD program really attracted the jury's attention," Diallo said as quoted by kompas.com.

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The ministry's early childhood education director, Ella Yulaelawati, said that the ministry had since 2013 put in place a program aiming to promote gender equality via better access to education for girls and women. The program includes publishing a handbook on gender, allocating gender-based funds and increasing knowledge about gender among PAUD's education workers. The results, said Ella, can be seen from rise in the number of female kindergarten students to 1,156,777 last year, rivaling the number of boys at 1,396,523. 

"In terms of PAUD education workers, Indonesia faces challenges to increase the number of male workers since today positions are dominated by females," Ella noted, adding that, conversely, most university lecturers were men.

"The gender equality issue is a huge task for the ministry and we have made efforts to introduce a gender program from the moment the kids join the PAUD program.". (jam/kes)