Abstract :
IIn most countries, women have responsibilities for both domestic and income-generating roles, but their ability to contribute to society is constrained by social, cultural and political traditions. Compared to men, they tend to be less educated, more limited in their options and are lower paid. UNESCO (1992) reported that “the men’s negative attitude towards the education of their daughters/sisters or their wives reflect their deep-rooted fear that education will lead women to become independent and uncontrollable, they may start demanding too much”. Due to above-mentioned factors female are confined to play a passive role in general and in the education sector particularly, in Pakistan A recent publication from the Ministry of Education, Islamabad (EMI,P, 2000-01) shows, that the population of Pakistan is 135 million and the over all literacy rate is 49%, male 61.3%, female 36.8%. Out of it, the province of Sindh has a population of over 30 million. The overall literacy rate in this province is 46.7% and the literacy rate for female is 35.4.%. However, in rural areas of Sindh, the rate of female literacy is 13.11% against the male literacy rate, which is 52.1%. According to the recent UNDP publication, there is a considerable disparity between male and female, in terms of availing professional development opportunities. Considering the importance of professional development of female in the education sector in Sindh, the Aga Khan University- Institute for Educational Development )AKU-IED),, under the Pakistan Non Government Initiatives (PNI-II(, launched a project titled ‘Strengthening the Capacity of NGOs/CBOs’. Through its several offerings the project target provided opportunities for professional development of individuals, out of them, 68% were female, which shows the enthusiasm and commitment of the course participants, collaborating NGOs/CBOs and AKU-IED towards the professional development of female. This article unfolds the voices and reflections from the field in promoting female participation in professional development programmes offered by AKU-IED. Diverse range of techniques were employed in collection and analysis of data such as course participants reflective journals, written reflective assignments, experiences from observations along with formal and informal interviews from different stakeholders and write-up of follow up visits and workshops.
