Full report in French, with English executive summary. This study was undertaken for the Renforcement de la Lecture Initiale pour Tous (RELIT) program in Senegal, an activity made possible by the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It is an analysis of gender equality and equity in positions of responsibility and decision-making within the Senegalese Ministry of Education (MEN). Understanding this issue is important for combating gender stereotypes and biases, while drawing up a portrait of gender-related inequalities in access to positions of responsibility and decision-making bodies in the education sub-sectors. The study also points out the difficulties and constraints faced by women in positions of responsibility and identifies the obstacles that hinder their educational and professional careers. In addition, it looks at the promotion plan for women teachers to identify inequalities between men and women in access to positions of responsibility.

In French, with an English Executive Summary. Senegal is embarking on an ambitious reform program with the objective of improving learning outcomes for all students by more systematically using regional mother tongues as bridges to proficient literacy in French. The Renforcement de la Lecture Initiale pour Tous (RELIT) activity made possible by the American people through USAID is supporting the National Education Ministry (MEN) in the development of the materials, pedagogy, assessments, and teacher training needed to implement the MOHEBS. The institutional capacity development elements of RELIT are by design meant to complement these other interventions. RELIT is approaching institutional capacity in terms of the knowledge and skills of actors in key positions at each level of the system, but more importantly also in terms of how those levels relate to each other and the institutional environments within which all the concerned actors operate. This relates to how their jobs are defined, how their responsibilities are assigned and resourced, and what explicit or tacit incentives or disincentives they encounter in the day-to-day fulfillment of those responsibilities. Additionally, RELIT recognized from the beginning that investments to improve institutional capacity are dependent on the engagement and willingness of the actors involved to identify their needs and, on the basis of those needs, jointly plan with RELIT the actions that will best address them. Therefore, RELIT has taken the participatory approach described below to assessing and addressing institutional capacity development needs in the education system in Senegal. This report describes the result of institutional capacity self-assessment activities in the regions involved in RELIT.