Selling out our boys

(The same happened in NSW in 1994 when backbencher Stephen O'Doherty led a similar inquiry. The resulting boys' education action plan was shelved when the Labor gained power.)

When the Howard government inquiry was in the news, I interviewed a former head of education in Victoria, Melbourne University professor Peter Hill, who pointed out that they were observing "a gender gap in the opposite direction far bigger than anything we saw in the past." He said the case for addressing low achieving boys was overwhelming.

Yet, here we are, over 20 years down the track and the problem has only got worse. And what does the Albanese government do? Earlier this month they announced major increases in funding for women in STEM (now a $47.5 million commitment), which includes $2 million for the Girls in STEM Toolkit and more money for the STEM Equity Monitor now worth $3.8 mill. And so it goes on…

Last year a national investigation by Catholic Schools NSW found Australia is facing "a growing crisis in boys' education" with boys overrepresented amongst the most academically vulnerable school students. Their excellent paper – The Echoes of Disparity Report – highlighted "the social justice issue nobody is talking about." Naturally the report sank without a trace.

A funny footnote to this worrying state of affairs was that late last year Australia was found to have ranked dead last in the field of 58 counties participating in a long-running international maths and science test and now has the world's biggest gender gap in favour of boys.

Australia has been participating in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) every four years since 1995, and about 14,000 year 4 and 8 students took the exam in 2023. Last year, for the first time, Australian boys outperformed girls in both subject and year levels.

What a hoot. How's that after 40 years of pouring resources into trying to help girls pull ahead in precisely these subjects?

"The chase towards gender equity in STEM and especially in Maths has been an expensive and counterproductive venture," says Glenn Fahey, Director of Education at the Centre for Independent Studies. He points to an interesting paper by an expert in the field, psychology professor David C. Geary who makes the case that we are undermining our country's STEM capabilities by pushing girls into STEM who lack the predictors of success in these fields.

So, what do we do to promote success for both boys and girls? Fahey says there is no better option than getting the fundamentals right for all students, starting with good teaching, a sensible curriculum, and ensuring classroom time is productively used.

The evidence is firmly in on what works in the classroom for students to succeed, according to Fahey: teaching that is explicit and actively led by the teacher. This is especially helpful for boys, who on average demonstrate lower levels of attention - therefore disproportionately struggling with the kind of fashionable teaching approaches that leave a lot more agency to children than adults.

So, what we are talking about is a good education for everyone, irrespective of gender.

But it is not going to happen unless ordinary people - parents, grandparents, everyone who cares about the future of all our children - start to speak out.