Irascible Insights

 

The Under Achievement of Boys

There is a long standing and current debate within UK education concerning the under achievement of boys. This debate has an extensive history and first became a serious subject for discussion when, post the second world war, girls began to be offered the same educational opportunities as boys and were encouraged and rewarded for achieving high academic excellence. Giving full, free and equal educational access to girls revealed for the first time a small but significant difference in academic achievement between the sexes at ages sixteen to eighteen. This difference however, largely disappeared post eighteen, with boys catching up and even surpassing the girls, especially in the sciences.  

As an ex-teacher at both primary and secondary levels, I have personally observed a widening of the gender gap in educational achievement between boys and girls, with girls doing significantly better at GCSE and A levels during the last several decades. This disparity has gone hand in hand with the rise of post modernism, the propagation of identity politics, the emphasis on the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, the rise of woke and trans-gender ideology and an unrelenting attack upon all the traditional attributes of masculinity. 

Reversing the trend in the under achievement of boys will require a paradigm shift in the attitudes and competence of many schoolteachers, together with a significant attitudinal re-adjustment among all politicians and educational professionals. Given this fact, I don't hold out much hope that there will be any significant change in boys’ under achievement anytime soon.

Here are just some suggestions for educators of what I believe needs to happen to begin to address this important issue.

1. Stop denigrating boys for being boys and stop undervaluing their contributions to society. Girls will not appreciate, or thank you, when they are forced to choose a life partner from a bunch of woke, unconfident and ill-educated male milksops.

2. Begin to assert, value and teach to all boys the virtues of true masculinity, such as: chivalry, honour, honesty, courage, resilience, strength, integrity, wisdom, loyalty, compassion, self-control, responsibility, kindness, confidence, respect, curiosity, competence, and above all, a true sense of self-worth.

3. Show boys the increasing value that developing their true masculinity will have upon their future propects as desirable mates in the dating game and employ the opinions of girls and women to reinforce that important message.

4. Stop telling lies to boys about gender and teaching them that morality is relative. It is not!

5. Stop trying to equalise outcomes between the genders and allow boys to fully develop their own areas of interest without castigating them as misogynists, or describing masculinity as toxic.

6. Stop celebrating DEI initiatives and stop encouraging students to believe and propagate lies about biological sex.

7. Start to teach about the enormous contribution made by men throughout history to widen human knowledge and to establish an ethical framework for the benefit of all humanity.

8. Assert the ethical and practical superiority of civilised western values and teach the history of ‘The Enlightenment,’ together with the vital importance of logic and reason in deciding the truth, or falsity of arguments and opinions.

I believe the above suggestions represent the minimum requirements to effect the desired improvement in boys' achievement. However, given the current state of British education, together with the lamentable lack of intelligence and competence among education professionals I don't believe that there's a snowballs chance in hell that any of the above strategies will ever be implemented, so unfortunately, boys’ under achievement will continue to be a topic of on-going and largely fruitless debate.