EDUCATIONAL HURDLES FOR BOYS

Alan Barron

Boys under-performance in education is a worldwide concern. Women have overtaken men at every level of education in developed countries around the world, and girls are now more confident of getting better-paid, professional jobs than their flagging male counterparts. International education figures, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, show a consistent picture, across cultures and continents, of women achieving better results than men. The OECD survey is a detailed comparison of education achievement and spending in 43 developed countries. The success of girls is a complete reversal of what would have been expected a generation ago, said Andreas Schleicher, head of analysis at the OECD's education directorate. The 1990s have seen a remarkable change in women's expectations and achievements.

The survey found that in almost every developed country, 15-year-old girls are more confident than boys about getting high-income jobs. In the United Kingdom, 63% of girls expect to have "white collar, high-skilled" jobs by the time they are 30, compared to only 51% of boys. This picture of girls with higher expectations than boys is repeated in the United States, Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, France and Australia.

University challenge

Girls have good reason to be more confident than boys, because academically, around the globe, they are more successful - which is likely to lead to higher-income jobs. In literacy skills, 15-year-old girls are ahead of boys in every one of the 43 countries in the OECD survey. In the UK, the gap in literacy scores between girls and boys at this age is 26%. This school-age gender gap leads to an increasingly stark difference between the success of male and female students in getting into university. In New Zealand, 89% of women enter university, compared to 62% of men. In Iceland, 80% of women go into higher education, compared to 42% of men.

In the United Kingdom, the figures for 2001 show that 49% of women entered university, compared to 41% of men. Andreas Schleicher says much of the rapid growth in higher education places and the larger number of students staying in education can be directly attributed to this growing academic success of women.

But why should boys be falling behind, in so many different countries? Andreas Schleicher says there are "troubling signs" that boys are more susceptible to being put off education by disruptions in their home environment. Boys seem less able to overcome obstacles to education, he says, whether it is peer group pressure or a lack of family support.

The Good News

An academic who has run a decade-long campaign on the need for extra schooling help for boys has been hired by the Australian Government to rewrite education guidelines relating to gender. Richard Fletcher, of Newcastle University, is part of a team commissioned to redraft the gender equity framework designed to support the particular needs of boys and girls in schools. The move has split those in education. While some have praised the Fletcher appointment, saying it acknowledges the pressing need to come up with new policies to help boys as they move through the education system, others have accused the Federal Government of running its own ideological agenda.

Tim Hawke, headmaster of The King's School and a writer on boys' education, has praised the decision. The current framework "pathologises maleness", he said. The authors of this framework appeared "more interested in finding an antidote to the toxic touch of testosterone than putting in place sensible policies that support the educational needs of both sexes", he said. The current gender equity framework derived from the highly successful girls' education strategies introduced in the mid-1970s to help break down barriers to girls' educational achievements.

In 1997 these policies were broadened to deal with needs of both boys and girls but, say Professor Fletcher and other critics, the strategy did little for boys. In a submission to a federal parliamentary committee , Professor Fletcher said the policies failed to include positive strategies to support boys' achievement and engagement in schooling.

The report from the parliamentary inquiry, published in October last year, recommended the policies be revised since they did not "adequately articulate and address boys’ educational needs” and criticised a "negative" focus limited to "boys not being violent, not monopolising space and equipment and not harassing girls and other boys". The Federal Education Minister, Brendan Nelson, said at the time of the report's release: "We have to honestly consider to what extent the gender equity framework has been responsible for letting down boys and their families."

Other academics and education consultants dispute that the guidelines need changing. The framework "already provides an appropriate national policy framework for addressing the educational needs of boys," said the [feminist dominated] Australian Education Union in a submission to the parliamentary inquiry. "They are making it very clear which way they want to send it," said one academic source critical of the Government's decision, suggesting the new focus will be on boys rather than "a fine tuned balance between the needs of both boys and girls".

Professor Fletcher said the Government was responding to community concerns.

Alan Barron is the father of 2 boys and 2 girls and the Coordinator if the Institute of Men’s Studies.