GOVERNMENT FIDDLES WHILE ANOTHER GENERATION OF BOYS BURN

Today's GCSE results shows another generation of boys who have been betrayed by an education system that does not care about them, is content to see them relegated to second class citizen status and is happy to see them sacrificed on the altar of anti-male Marxist feminism.

Today's results which showed boys dropping further behind girls at the top grade, with just 19.6% of their exam entries awarded A* or A, compared with 26.5% for girls. The biggest gap since 1991 when it was 3.6%. For A* to C, the gap is 8.5% (66% boys and 73.5% girls). Subject by subject results are here.

The story is mirrored at A-levels (18 year olds), SATS (11 year olds), university and the professions.

The thing is that while this government acknowledges (BBC video - 2 minutes in) there is a problem of boys education (more so than its predecessors who purposely ignored it because it was a Marxist form of social engineering) they still do little about it as constantly pointed out by this site time and again (especially here).

Nick Gibb mentions that we need more discipline and better reading skills at primary school level - but it not enough. Many believe, as I do, that the ending of exam based O-levels (last taken in 1987) and moving to the female-friendly course-based GCSE's was the fundamental shift.

If the governement was serious it would allow both systems to co-exist and then at least boys could take exams that play to their innate strengths and girls to theirs.

That would be too radical though not just in itself but because it would trying to help boys achieve some sort of equality and we all know no one is interested in that especially the metropolitan elite.

There are some that state the move to end of course teaching may help, we hope so. The Guardian points out that course work has been dropped for Maths and this has seen boys outperform girls. It would unfair though to go back to a system that was boy-friendly but not girl-friendly - so why not have two types of exams.

The other point of course is that on a daily basis we hear about the gender pay gap or the gender boardroom gap but nothing about the gender education gap.

Why are the Ministers for Equality (Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone) so silent, why is Trevor Phillips the Chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission so silent and why is the cabinet member for education (Michael Gove) so silent? It is because they do not care about men and boys, they are content to see them shunted into life's sidings. After all, that is serving the needs of the anti-male establishment that run the country.

Posted by Skimmington 

Media coverage - A great synopsis on the BBC, general BBC coverage and Evening Standard.

Comments

[John Kimble]

Excellent summary of the situation as usual. Not sure any sane person could disagree with much of that.

I think the gap is actually smaller at A-level stage and also at University once you remove all the females studying for easier degrees. These latest results therefore support the theory that much of the damage to boys is caused at primary school and many males eventually still manage to recover once at university (but only those lucky enough to make it that far).

Many boys enter secondary education with appalling reading skills and I think primary education is an even bigger issue than the exam system (which does indeed also need major reform).

[Bob]

The yahoo headline this morning (from an article by the Press Asscociaiton);

"GCSEs gap 'as boys lack maturity'"

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/record-results-boys-fall-behind-083123566.html

If there ever was a load of misandrous tosh this is it. Boys did better than girls in the past, were they for some reason 'maturing' earlier then? Even taking different exam formats into account this 'maturity' argument is insidious and very offensive.

Boys today are completely bombarded with messages from all quarters that their lives are of less value than girls, that their gender is to blame for domestic violence, rape, child abuse and a host of other 'man crimes'.

All really boys really require is to be in an environment that encourages them to study and there is nothing more encouraging than a rewarding achievable goal.

A place in the family and in society as an equal as well as equal options for the future are true motivators.

A life as a second class citizen who cannot even expect to have a secure place as a father in the family never mind be free from misandrous daily propaganda is most certainly not a motivator. Boys who see their own fathers excluded and their gender routinely vilified, will never be fired-up when it comes to participating in such a society.

Girls on the other hand who receive the opposite messages from society, the media and undoubtedly many of their feminist mothers (SMOGs Smug Mother's of Girls) will be very keen to take part.

The media is how the feminists spread their brand of discrimination and the media will be the key to its undoing.

Headlines like "GCSEs gap 'as boys lack maturity'" however shows we have a long way to go.

[Michael Steane]

The school system was designed for the express purpose of keeping the newly emerging working class down during the industrial revolution. The methodology was borrowed from India where it had been used to maintain the caste system for centuries and adapted to prevent learning and retard maturity in the West. (Read John Taylor Gatto's An Undergroung History of American Education available free online for more information on this subject.)
If anyone actually believes the system is trying to help students learn instead of produce a mass of pliable people, they should ask themselves the following questions:
1. Why are schools completely unable to teach foreign languages to conversational levels when children merely exposed to second languages used for communication purposes systematically achieve this goal?
2. Why after continuous changes over more than a century has the system not improved?
3. Why are home educated children able to achieve results which are absolutely stupendous in comparison with those in formal education?
Arguing about methodology is a waste of time. The purpose of school is not to provide education.

[Groan]

John you are quite right about A Levels. In fact the gap actually reduced this year. This suggests that there is nothing "natural" about the steady increase in the gap and that action can make a difference. Bob. your point about the past Gap is well made. Again what it indicates is that work to improve Girls' performance has been effective. All in all there seems every reason to suppose that boys attainment can be increased by concerted effort.
Frankly this is desparately needed not least because the operation of the "positive discrimination" clauses of the Equality Act will increase the use of paper qualifications as a proxy for demonstrating canditates were treated fairly. Things like competence in work or skills and qualities are harder to measure to courts will use exam results.

The Yahoo headline is clearly sexist. And would be seen as such if the fact that black boys perform badly. A headline the black boys are less mature woiuld get them into instant hot water.