Editorial
Boys are becoming the weak spot in the education system
For decades, Australia has put enormous effort into correcting the historical features of the education system that tended to favour boys over girls.
Programs have been put in place to allow young women to feel safe from harassment and bullying and be heard in classrooms where boys often make more noise. Girls have been encouraged to overcome their traditional hesitancy about taking maths and science subjects.
Yet, as Jordan Baker reports, it might be time to start a new debate about whether enough is being done to encourage boys and young men in the education system.
It turns out, on almost every metric, young men are now doing much less well at school than women.
According to the Universities Admissions Centre, young men are 16 per cent less likely to obtain an HSC ATAR qualification than girls in the same group.
Only 43 per cent of people who apply for admission to tertiary education are male.
Boys are generally more likely than girls to be in the bottom third of ATAR results.
Boys’ rates of attendance at school are much lower than girls.
The phenomenon is not new. The House of Representatives committee on education and training wrote a report titled Boys: Getting it right on the education of boys in 2002, which was co-authored by then backbench MP Anthony Albanese.
But the problem is growing more urgent because of the changing nature of the economy and the labour market.
In the old days, some young men were happy to drop out of school because they were confident they could earn a good wage in unskilled jobs or traditional trade apprenticeships.
But in our modern technology-driven economy, it is harder and harder to find work or even complete an apprenticeship or trade certificate without the sorts of skills taught at school. Tradies need to write emails and use computers.
There does not seem to be any one easy explanation for why so many young boys are not fitting in at school.
Some argue that boys and young men are turned away from education because they lack male role models.
Some schools offer mentoring courses for young men to keep them engaged with school, but action is also needed to even the gender balance in the teaching profession. In NSW government schools, only 27.6 per cent of teachers are male, which is almost unchanged from a decade ago. In secondary schools, the ratio of male teachers is falling.
It is not always easy to strike the correct balance when developing courses that appeal to both girls and boys.
Some educators argue that the curriculum could help boys by focusing less on communication skills which are often not an adolescent boy’s strongest point. They say, for example, that boys have suffered since English became a compulsory HSC subject.
But others argue boys need the verbal and written communication skills learnt in English class for almost any job these days and indeed for being a citizen and having a life.
For a time, the NSW syllabus tried to encourage girls to take physics and chemistry courses by taking out maths and putting in more self-expression and social content. Yet, NSW in 2018 reversed the “feminisation” of these subjects and put the maths back in.
Whatever solutions are found to this dilemma, the guiding principle must be that boys’ success should not come at the expense of girls. There must be no return to the bad old days. Educators must offer both boys and girls pathways to achieve their potential.
Bevan Shields sends a newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.