Earlier today I took part in a debate in Parliament on ‘the educational performance of boys’ highlighting the fact that girls outperform boys at all stages of education and looking for ways to address the problem.
Boys are almost twice as likely as girls to be falling behind in language skills by the time they start school. In the last decade, nearly a million boys were not achieving the level expected at age five, often struggling to follow simple instructions or speak in a full sentence. In Worcestershire 76.5 per cent of boys met the standard for early language and communication, 9.6 per cent below the number of girls.
Academics have highlighted that parents should do the kinds of activities often more commonly associated with girls to boost boys’ language skills such as singing, drawing and painting.
Research from the University of California suggesting that there is a physical as well as social dimension to the problem. Boys take longer to get going in the morning. They tend to need to sleep in later in the mornings and prefer to work later into the evenings, and that may have implications, for example, for the timing of the school day.
The problems beginning in early years go on to later life. At Key stage 2 girls generally outperform boys. Girls outperform boys in headline GCSE results with those achieving 5+ A*-Cs including English and Maths in state-funded schools 9.3 per cent higher for girls than boys in 2015.
There are more women than men in two thirds of higher education courses with women 35 per cent more likely to go to University than men, with white boys the most disadvantaged group in entry to higher education. Boys also show less enthusiasm for going on to higher education than boys throughout their school years.
There is a gender education gap that exists regardless of geography or background. This is not just a UK but a global problem. Whilst it is welcome that education standards generally are improving with more than 1.4 million more pupils now being taught in schools judged good or outstanding by Ofsted than in 2010, the gap between boys and girls remains – though it is slowly closing.
The research evidence suggests that the behaviour and attitudes of boys and girls towards school and academic study tend to differ in a number of ways. It is important that this is recognised by parents and schools, as well as the Government, and more is done to understand this issue.
We need to build a country that works for everyone, where both boys and girls can rise as far as their talents will take them.