Massive educational under-achievement by boys compared to girls in English schools is to be tackled by the Government amid claims that the problem is reaching crisis point.

New figures to be released by the Schools Minister Stephen Byers on Monday will show a widening gulf between the sexes, starting in primary school and worsening in secondary school.

Help to close a new gender gap

On the same day programmes to tackle the problem, including research into whether more male teachers need recruiting into the female-dominated primary sector, are to be announced at an international conference on school effectiveness in Manchester.

Plans will also be announced to tackle under-achievement among four to six-year-olds.

Local education authorities will be asked to show how they will tackle the problem of under-achievement as experts become increasingly concerned at the widening gulf between the sexes.

Girls on top

The new official statistics show that girls now outperform boys in all but one local authority. In some areas up to 15% more girls than boys achieve five or more GCSEs at Grade C or above.

In English, where the GCSE gap is widest, 59% of girls achieved a Grade C or better compared with 41% of boys. Boys have slipped behind girls at every level of the National Curriculum and, even by the age of seven, girls are beating their male counterparts in English, Maths and Science.

Ministers hope that recruiting more male teachers will boost the performance of boys

Also for the first time, more girls than boys are gaining university places. A Government source said: "Underachievement among boys is a real problem and it is something that we are determined to tackle.

"Particularly as boys get into secondary school the gap gets significantly greater, but it is a problem that starts in primary schools. What Stephen Byers will be doing is looking at existing successful programmes in schools and setting up new initiatives as well as instigating more research into why this happens.

"There is certainly an issue in terms of the lack of male teachers in primary schools and how they can act as positive role models for boys."

A primary school in Plymouth last year asked for more men to help with pupils' reading after research showed that boys saw reading as "sissy" and something only women did.

The link between educational under-achievement and crime will be one of the key issues for the Government's Social Exclusion Unit set up by Tony Blair last year.
 

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