A rare article focusing on boys’ education

Newshub reports:

For women, the hard-won right to higher education was an economic game-changer and proved a positive boost for society. But women haven’t just caught up, they’ve surged ahead.

The gender gap for tertiary graduates is now wider than it was in the 1970s, just the other way around. …

Author Richard Reeves told The Project on Tuesday there are structures and systems that aren’t working as well for men as they used to.

“[The] prime suspect here is the education systems, where there are fewer male teachers, there’s less vocational training, and really we’re seeing boys falling further and further behind girls in the classroom.”

Reeves would like to see the education system reformed to better work around the needs of boys.

“We need to reform the education system to serve them better, so more male teachers,” he said.

“I would start boys in school a bit later because they just develop later, and more chances to run around, more chances to learn with hands because on average – of course this is all on average – boys learn better that way.”

Great to see a rare article on this problem in the media. We get 1,000 articles a year on the gender gap in earnings and almost none on the gender gap in education.

The idea of boys starting a bit later is an interesting one.

We also know that boys do far better in single sex schools, yet no new state single sex schools in decades. I’d like to see this policy reversed.