Study finds male pupils floundering

Dubai: More male pupils in the UAE are under-achieving or dropping out altogether from secondary public schools, a research study has revealed.

In 2005, for instance, over double the percentage of boys repeated their school year compared with girl pupils and were also found to be less keen on pursuing higher studies.

Educational policies are by no means gender-specific but the study indicates that factors like a less stimulating school environment, lack of support from teachers for boys unable to cope with their workload, and a general perception that school life has no bearing on success in life or career prospects have flawed the focus of school-going boys.

The research was conducted during the 2007-2008 school year by Dr Natasha Ridge for a doctoral dissertation as part of a Doctorate in Education specialising in International Education Policy at Columbia University.

It was designed to examine if there was a difference in the quality of secondary school education that girls in the UAE receive compared to boys, Dr Ridge said in an exclusive interview with Gulf News.

Widespread perception

"There is a widespread perception of the Middle East as a place in which girls are disadvantaged; but in recent reports from the World Bank and Unesco, statistics are showing that boys in the Middle East region are having significant difficulties," she said.

"In the UAE, girls are also outperforming boys across all subjects in national examinations and anecdotally this is the same in many countries in the region. However, we continue to read about the problems and difficulties faced by girls despite evidence which shows that, in terms of schooling, boys are not doing as strongly as girls," said Ridge who submitted her research findings to the Dubai School of Government, where she is a research fellow.

She examined eight government secondary schools in the Northern Emirates, four of them girls' and four boys' schools. Each school was observed over a six-month period.

The research assessed performance using six quality indicators derived from school quality research, such as outcomes, learner characteristics, teacher characteristics, resources, leadership and safety/ethos.

According to the research findings, the percentage of girls passing examinations was higher or comparable to boys across subjects and grades.

Drop-out rates in Grade 10, however, rose sharply by 25 per cent for boys, compared with around 4 per cent for girls.

Male teachers had on average twice the years of experience as female teachers, she said. "This was interesting considering that despite all their experience their students were performing much worse than those of the female teachers."

It was also revealed that girls' classrooms were more interactive and made use of more group activities than boys' classrooms.

"Boys on the other hand had schools that were cold and in which teachers taught predominantly through lectures. Boys were more likely to be hit, to fail or to drop-out as a result. All of this points to a need to look much more closely at the quality of education for boys. It is important to note that there are external factors affecting in particular the decision of boys to drop out, such as high salaries in public sector jobs that require minimum education."

Dr Ridge's recommendation to policy-makers is to look for methods to improve the teaching in boys' schools and the overall ethos of boys' schools.

Aptitude gap narrowing

"[Academic] Differences between boys and girls have become smaller over time, internationally," said Dr Ridge.

According to her, in the past, girls were perceived as "weaker" in mathematics and science and boys were thought to be "poorer" in literature and the humanities. However, tests such as PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) have shown that in general there is now no significant difference in levels of achievement of boys and girls in mathematics and that girls are marginally better in literature.

"In the Middle East, however, girls have not historically been weaker than boys in maths and an interesting study by Mittleberg and Lev-Ari (1999) conducted in Israel found that while Jewish boys performed better at mathematics than Jewish girls, Arab girls performed better than Arab boys in the same subject. Across the Middle East, the gender stereotyping of the West in which girls were not encouraged to take up mathematics did not occur and, as a result, girls really excel in the subject, which was also confirmed in this study," she said.

Said Dr Vincent Ferrandino, educational consultant at the Policy and Planning Office, Ministry of Education: "The ministry is well aware of the rate of dropouts in public schools, specifically among males, and it is looking into the problems and solutions for this issue."