Education gender gap

Gordon Brown has promised action to avert the prospect of a "wasted generation of boys" and tackle the gender gap in educational achievement.

The chancellor said he and education secretary Alan Johnson have asked the chief inspector of schools to recommend changes in the classroom to personalise learning to boys' needs, including greater use of computers.

Brown also called for more sport and community service to encourage discipline and personal responsibility, and said that he was looking to do more to support mentoring of younger boys by teenagers.

Stakeholder Response: National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations

Annette Wiles, policy and research manager at  NCPTA, said: "Parents will want to understand any proposed changes to the education system and what impact this will have on their children. 

"It is also important for parents to feel reassured that any action to tackle the stated gender gap in education is based on thorough research. And that the views of parents will be sought well in advance of any proposed changes being implemented. 

"Parents want the learning needs of all children, girls and boys, to be met rather than focusing on one particular group. Key to all parents is that every child receives the education they need and that every school has the resources to do this."

Stakeholder Response: Campaigning for Mainstream Universities Group

Pam Tatlow, chief executive of the CMU universities group, said: "This is an important initiative that could in the long run help to challenge the gender gap in access to higher education and assist widening participation.

"However, it is important to recognise that we can also challenge the gender gap in educational attainment by ensuring that even if young men fail to capitalize on their educational potential at school they can still access higher education as mature and part-time students, including with non-traditional qualifications. Modern universities are in the forefront of providing these opportunities.

"The government needs to ensure that funding models for both universities and students support the principle of both 'over-21' and part-time study at university."

Stakeholder Response: NASUWT

Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, said: "Two seemingly unconnected issues often provoke fierce debate in the education world, the frequent assertion that there is a developing crisis in relation to the underachievement of boys and their disengagement from formal education and the under-representation of male teachers in the profession.

"Much of the debate about underachievement has focused on the position of boys vis-à-vis girls. 

"Particular concerns have been expressed about the lower aggregate levels of attainment of boys in writing and other areas of literacy at the end of key stages two and three.

"It is claimed that boys’ underachievement is the result of the under-representation of men within the teaching profession and the existence of a feminised curriculum and feminine pedagogy.

"Such assertions wrongly make women teachers the scapegoats for the educational outcomes and experiences of boys, conveniently ignoring evidence of the impact of background, social class or economic circumstances.

"The focus on boys’ underachievement and the apparent success of girls in fact hides problems of underachievement for many girls from working class backgrounds. 

"The significant rise in achievement levels for girls is largely a middle-class phenomenon and does not read across for girls in all socio- economic groups and ethnicities.

"It is widely recognised that men are under-represented within the teaching profession, particularly in primary schools.

"The extent to which the make-up of the teaching profession, in terms of gender mix, fails to reflect the society that schools serve is a long-standing cause for concern.

"The Training and Development Agency has set a national target for recruiting men into initial teacher training.

"The most common explanations for this state of affairs apportion ‘blame’ to women.

"Explanations such as teaching is an occupation more suited to women as the nature of teachers’ contracted hours enabled women to combine their working life with family responsibilities and men do not enter the teaching profession because it is low paid, low status and because it is perceived as ‘women’s work’ are the most common ones.

"Some men claim that they eschew employment in primary schools because women teachers rely on them to exercise discipline. Such misguided assertions distract from the root causes of the problem.

"There is evidence to show that children express fixed views about women’s and men’s roles at a very early age.

"In addition, it is perceived that girls and boys are guided towards atypical subject choices that impact negatively on their learning and career choices.

"All young people therefore need to have access to an appropriate and comprehensive range of high-quality educational opportunities and life experiences.

"As such, there is a need to eliminate the damaging gender stereotyping which affects adversely the life chances of girls as well as boys.

"There is a body of evidence which suggests that the curriculum and the career choices that girls and boys make are founded on gender based stereotypes which impact on later employment choices and learning.

"Parental support and public attitudes are critical factors in transforming gender and cultural stereotypes. 

"All pupils, regardless of school phase and throughout the course of their educational careers, deserve equality of opportunity, particularly in their choice of academic and vocational choices.

"A coherent 14-19 phase, with high-quality information, advice, guidance and appropriate work experience that challenges gender stereotypes, is a critical factor in transforming gender and cultural labels.

"Furthermore, work experience and young apprenticeship schemes must actively promote atypical training placements for girls and boys.

"Action to address the ‘underachievement’ of boys must also be rooted in strategies to ensure economic and social justice on the grounds of ‘race’ and social class.

"One of the most effective ways of addressing under-representation of men is to ensure strategies are adopted which will recruit and retain high quality entrants regardless of gender.

"In particular, levels of remuneration which recognise and reward teachers as highly skilled professionals simultaneously raise the pay and status of teaching within the labour market.

"All workers want a reasonable work/life balance.

"Action to reduce the working hours of teachers is, therefore, critical to recruiting and retaining men and women in the profession.

"There should be realistic opportunities for men and women to work on part-time and job-share contracts and to take advantage of career breaks.

"There is an irony, however, which cannot go unremarked. Under-represented though men in teaching may be,  in general they earn more than women teachers irrespective of qualifications, skills and experience and they are disproportionately represented in school leadership positions, as evidence shows they often benefit from masculinist employer assumptions which portray men as ‘natural leaders’ of the profession.

"Don’t blame the women. Tackle disadvantage, deprivation, discrimination unfairness and inequity."