Launch of Child Friendly Schools in Northeast Shenyang

Textbooks with gender-biased pictures of apron-clad mothers doing housework as fathers sit reading the paper will not be part of the Child Friendly School curriculum in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province.
UNICEF and the Ministry of Education launched pilot Child-Friendly projects on August 19 at 62 schools in three districts of Shenyang. Around 60,000 students are expected to benefit from the program. From this semester onwards the schools will operate according to the Chinese National Standard of Child Friendly Schools.
The aim of the program is to establish a child-friendly environment, improve relationships among schools, community and family, and update teaching methods and school management. At present, the program is operating in more than 4,000 schools in a dozen provinces.
Gender equality is a cornerstone of the Child Friendly School curriculum, which operates on the principle that girls are as capable as boys of academic excellence.
The Chinese government advocates gender equality, but gender bias is nevertheless common in teaching environments. Textbook illustrations generally depict men as scientists, inventors, writers and professors. Women, other than in the roles of housewife and mother, are generally cast as service industry workers or at best as kindergarten teachers.
"Standard textbooks reinforce gender stereotypes and thus narrow students' social perspective. We need to introduce new teaching materials that convey a more realistic picture of contemporary social life and that strike a more even gender balance," a high school headmaster surnamed Zhang said.