A capacity building workshop on gender and human rights teaching for university teachers was recently held in Beijing. A clear majority, namely 100 % of the 22 participants, agreed that the workshop has broadened their understanding on gender and human rights. More than 90% agreed that the workshop had relevance in relation to their current teaching*.
The Swedish Ambassador to China, Anna Lindstedt opened the workshop, emphasizing the importance of gender teaching in all levels in society:
The education system is crucial to achieve structural change and further the agenda of gender equality, and human rights academia is where new ideas and solutions for the future are formed. It is also where young people get prepared for their work life, which naturally shapes the understanding of the norms and rules that apply to interaction with other people
The workshop is a joint initiative taken in 2017 by RWI and the Norwegian Human Rights Center (NCHR) and has brought together participants representing 21 universities over China.

The workshop was carried out in cooperation with the Constitutionalism Research Institute of the China University of Political Science and Law. Apart from presentations by Chinese experts on gender equality and human rights, there was also a section where RWI researcher Anna Bruce introduced the teaching of IHRL and gender in Sweden and gender equal teaching.

And workshops like these are just one of many steps taken to ensure an improvement of gender and human rights education at Chinese universities. Alongside the workshops is the development of a textbook, as no such resource exists today.
Therefore a group of teachers has been set up in order to see to this problem and will shortly pay a research visit to Sweden and Norway between the 12-20 June. The group will learn about the Swedish and Norwegian legal frameworks and practices on gender equality and human rights.
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*For more information on the feedback from the participants, please follow this link.