Over the past decade, African tertiary education institution, Universities in particular, have been very keen to mainstream gender into their core functions of teaching, learning, research and administration systems. However, these efforts have usually been ad hoc and based on the commitment of individual lecturers, deans, and vice-chancellors. Seldom does one find a concerted, well-synchronized policy and plan integrating gender into the institution’s overall functions. In response to a felt need to bridge persistent gender gaps in tertiary education institutions in Africa, the Working Group on Higher Education (WGHE) of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), in collaboration with the Association of African Universities (AAU), developed a Toolkit for Mainstreaming Gender in Tertiary Education in Africa and have piloted training workshops for a number of AAU member institutions using the Kit.

The Gender Parallel event sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, is a mini training session using the Toolkit which is a practical guide comprising ten modules and a literature review on how to initiate an institutional gender-mainstreaming program and establish useful processes. In a plenary presentation preceding the event, Professor Mathew Luhunga, the immediate past Vice Chancellor, will share the experiences of the University of Dar Es Salaam. It is the hope of ADEA-WGHE and AAU that the institutions that will attend the training will take practical and proactive steps to mainstream gender in their core functions, in order to ensure sound institutional governance, human rights and equitable development and use of the most highly skilled human capital, towards the acceleration of the continents’ socio-economic development.