Boys are being left behind

The issue highlighted by Prof Flynn warrants serious consideration. Sometimes answers are in front of your face, but no-one wishes to acknowledge them.

It is a good and necessary thing that females now have opportunities that were denied them for so long. But what we have now is not a level playing field.

Education has become, essentially feminised. It no longer supports males adequately. Primary school teachers are almost exclusively female. There are almost no male role models at this crucial stage of male development, a fact that can be compounded by the absence of males in many households.

In secondary schools methods of teaching and assessment are female-orientated. Progressive assessment does not generally accord with the way males think and learn. Added to this, there is a majority of female teachers at secondary leveland, in any event, teachers are prohibited from even raising their voices to students, much less imposing any corporal punishment. This is inconsistent with the way boys' minds work. Boys need immediate and strong responses administered with genuine concern for their welfare.

Girls mature faster than boys until at least their mid-20s. Imposing the same learning system on males and females tilts the system towards females. Having single-sex schools does not resolve this concern although it goes part of the way. Having an education system biased against males is no fairer than an education system that fails to accommodate disabled children. A bias is a bias, wherever it occurs. Unfortunately, in the case of boys, it prejudices 50% of the population.

The effects of this bias are now reflected in the preponderance of females at university and in polytechs. The consequences of this bias will have further adverse effects over time with alienation of large groups of males a real possibility.