GEMS (Gender Equity Movement in Schools) — ICRW's Classroom Curriculum on Gender and Violence for Young Adolescents in Mumbai, Scaled Across Maharashtra

GEMS was developed by ICRW with CORO for Literacy and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and first piloted in 45 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation schools for students in grades VI and VII. Its 24 sessions over two years cover gender, violence and bodily changes in year one, and relationships, emotions, communication and conflict resolution in year two.
ICRW reports that it has been scaled to more than 20,000 schools across Maharashtra and adapted in Bangladesh and Hanoi. An evaluation across 80 schools in two Jharkhand districts surveyed more than 3,000 boys and girls and found a positive, significant shift in attitudes on gender and violence, lower support for corporal punishment, lower acceptance of peer violence and more willingness to intervene against name-calling.
Cautionary evidence: ICRW itself notes that corporal punishment persists, students feel powerless to stop it, and teachers and parents show some resistance. A 2025 mixed-methods cross-sectional study of 234 boys in two Sirajganj (Bangladesh) schools found higher gender-knowledge in GEMS students (about 3x) but lower attitude scores than the comparison school (47.02 vs 51.85), with scores rising 1.1 points per session attended; family background mattered strongly. Violence outcomes are largely self-reported attitudes rather than measured prevalence.

Read the full analysis: https://www.edu-links.org/resources/building-support-gender-equality-among-young-adolescents-school