UPOU prioritizes gender and development with the establishment of the Office of Gender Concerns and the Gender Focal Point System.The UP Open University’s proposal to institutionalize the UPOU Gender Focal Point System and Office of Gender Concerns was finally approved by the UP Board of Regents (BOR) on its 1302nd Meeting on October 30, 2014.
The proposal entails transforming the existing Committee on Gender Concerns (CGC) into a policy advisory Gender and Development Executive Committee (GAD ExeCom), establishing the Office of Gender Concerns (OGC), and bringing all units of the university in to participate in the university’s Gender and Development initiatives.
The CGC was created in 2001 to deal with the prevention of or respond to cases or incidents of sexual harassment in the university. Since then, the committee has expanded its mandate to include gender advocacy and gender mainstreaming. The CGC has initiated gender mainstreaming activities such as film festivals, awareness campaigns, gender fora and gender sensitivity training for the faculty, staff and students in the hope of removing gender stereotypes, expectations and perceptions that tend to box men and women in, while mainstreaming gender lens in the teaching and research functions of the university.
With OGC’s creation and the appointment of its Director, Assistant Prof. Finaflor F. Taylan of the Faculty of Management and Development Studies, a more rigorous set of activities are being planned in the areas of administration, instruction, research and extension. Now more than ever, there is a need to bring forth, analyze and engage with various gender-related issues not only in the physical world but also in the cyberspace, given that UPOU is the cyber campus of the UP system. (Fides Marie Dela Cruz)
