Towards gender transformative education: evidence from GEMS in Jharkhand, India

An evaluation of the Gender Equity Movement in Schools (GEMS) programme in Jharkhand, India found that students grew more engaged with school and more confident in themselves, while deeper gender attitudes and school retention proved harder to shift.

The GEMS programme has been implemented by ICRW since 2008, reaching over 2.5 million students and teachers across 25,000 schools in several countries. This report evaluates its second phase in Jharkhand, India, run since 2021 across 200 government schools in Godda and Jamtara districts, in a state where 32 per cent of women aged 20 to 24 were married before 18, well above the national average.

The programme combines teacher capacity building, a curriculum of 33 classroom sessions delivered over three years, school wide campaigns, a diary linking classroom learning to conversations at home, and outreach to parents and school committees. 

A quasi-experimental evaluation compared over 2,800 students at baseline in 2021 and endline in 2024, comparing those exposed and not exposed to the programme within government schools. 

The evaluation finds clear improvements in how students felt about school and studying, in educational aspirations for higher education, and in self-efficacy, particularly among girls. Effects on gender attitudes were more mixed: boys showed significant improvement while results for girls varied by age group, and attitudes towards violence and family authority proved the most resistant to change. School retention showed no significant improvement for girls and a concerning five percentage point decline for boys, a pattern the report links to COVID-19 disruption and to well documented, global trends in boys disengaging from school.

This resource is from the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), an organisation working to generate evidence based, gender transformative solutions that advance the economic and social status of women and girls worldwide.

Key messages

• GEMS has reached over 2.5 million students and teachers across 25,000 schools since its 2008 launch.
• Students exposed to the programme showed significantly improved perceptions of school and studies, and increased aspiration to pursue higher education.
• Self-efficacy improved significantly for both younger and older girls exposed to the programme; the effect on boys' self-efficacy was not significant.
• Gender attitudes improved for boys and older girls but showed limited change for younger girls, with attitudes on violence and family authority the most resistant to shift.
• School retention did not improve significantly for girls and fell by five percentage points among boys, a trend the report links to pandemic disruption and wider patterns of boys' disengagement from education.
• Attitudes towards child marriage became somewhat more progressive over time, though support for honouring family marriage decisions actually rose across all groups.
• The report recommends deeper engagement with parents and communities, integration with existing school curricula, a skills based component, and starting gender transformative work with younger children.