Boys learn better in boys' only classes, leading headmaster says

As girls outperform boys at school, New Zealand's institutional response has been one of "denial, delay and trivialisation", the rector of Waitaki Boys' High School argues.

Speaking at a Massey University conference on boys' schooling last month, Paul Baker said "a substantial and comprehensive gender gap emerges" from Year 11.

Dr Baker said the evidence suggested teenage boys learnt and developed best in a male environment. Boys' schools or classes had particular advantages in meeting male needs.

He said research showed male teachers were more likely to motivate boys, cater for boys' interests, provide stable male figures for students who lacked them at home, and role model masculinity. The primary school teachers' union - the NZEI - commissioned and endorsed a report that reached similar conclusions.

For many boys, "only mum and a female teacher are involved in their education. The danger was of a subliminal equation of education with femininity".

In 1956, 42 percent of primary school teachers were male, compared with 18 percent today. In 1971, 59 percent of secondary school teachers were male, compared with 42 percent now, and the figure is dropping faster than at primary schools.

There are 66 boys' high schools in New Zealand, attended by about a quarter of all boys. In 2002 NCEA results, those boys were 9 percent ahead of boys in co-ed schools.

Quality teaching 'will help boys'

Meanwhile, Education Minister Steve Maharey this month told a national boys' schools conference in Christchurch that quality teaching would make the biggest difference in efforts to lift boys' achievement.

Government figures show that more boys than girls left school before they reached Year 13, more girls than boys who did stay for Year 13 gained University Entrance, and the gap was increasing.

They show that achievement gaps are significant at secondary school level in English and other literacy-based subjects.

Mr Maharey said the government believed the best way to address the issue was not through a homogenous approach to teaching boys, but through quality teaching in all schools that focuses on the needs of individual students.

The government currently invests around $32 million a year in programmes to lift literacy standards. The greatest gains in reading achievement were being made by Maori and Pacific students, including boys, who make up the largest proportion of participants.

Mr Maharey said boys made up around two-thirds of students getting help through the Student Engagement Initiative.

He said the "average" boy needed short, closed tasks, regular physical breaks and boy-friendly curriculum material.

The Numeracy Development Project had resulted in a 57 point increase for Year 5 Pasifika boys and a 70 point increase for Year 5 Maori boys in maths between 1994 and 2002.

Female teachers 'harmful for boys' reading'

A large fraction of boys' under-performance in reading in the United States reflects the fact that their reading teachers are "overwhelmingly female", a research paper suggests.

The National Bureau of Economic Research working paper says the classroom dynamics associated with female teachers is detrimental to boys' reading skills.

Boys and girls have equal skills in pre-school, but the reading under-performance of 17-year-old boys was equivalent to 1.5 years of schooling.

The paper also says male teachers can harm girls' reading performance - "One year with a male English teacher would eliminate nearly a third of the gender gap in reading performance among 13 year olds ... and would do so by improving the performance of boys and simultaneously harming that of girls."

It says 91 percent of the United States' sixth grade reading teachers, and 83 percent of eighth grade reading teachers, are female.

Resources

More information on the NBER working paper, 'Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement', is at this web page.

Details on last month's Massey University boys' schooling conference is at this web page.

Paul Baker's conference speech notes are online at the New Zealand Herald website at this web page and this web page.

Mr Maharey's speech is at this web page.