The State of Girls in Britains Educational System - Essay Example

The of Girls in Britain's Educational System For the past decades, the struggle to increase the literacy and educational levels of all countries around the globe has become a familiar topic of conversation in world conferences and discussions between world leaders. In the year 2000, for example, leaders from all around the globe attended the World Education Forum in Dakar wherein they agreed to pursue the goal of free education for all their constituents by the year 2015. (Campaign for Education 2). Education is perceived as a necessity for survival in contemporary times. All individuals need education to be able to compete in the world. In order for a society to flourish, its individuals need to have equal chances in school so that they can have practically equal chances of success and are not barred by disadvantages that they have no control over. This framework of equal opportunity cannot realistically be achieved in communities wherein only a select group have access to education and information. It also cannot be achieved when you have an educational system that favours the development of a certain group at the price of neglecting the development of another group. At present, there are still existing inequalities in the educational development of different groups in different countries. One of these existing inequalities is the gender disparity wherein a specific gender is shown to be better advantaged as compared to the other gender when it comes to succeeding in school. For many decades, there have been numerous campaigns to combat the gender gap or gender disparity in education. For the large part, this gender gap has mostly been in favour of males and was seen to emerge in different manifestations. Enrolment numbers, for example, which showed boys outnumbering girls, is one clear sign of this gender disparity. The gender disparity is also manifested in instances wherein greater educational opportunities and achievements are awarded to boys as compared to girls. For a long time in history, the main direction of the gender disparity in education has mostly been in favour of boys. This is why this has become one of the battles fought by feminism in the past decades, with feminist groups in developed countries such as Britain and the United States fighting for greater educational opportunities and recognition for girls and women. Feminist groups that fought for equal educational opportunities for both men and women were fuelled by the basic need for equal education in order to induce equal opportunity in labour for both women and men. Without equal education, women could not compete in equal footing with men when it came to job applications and as such, could not forward gender equality in the workplace and in society. The struggle for equal educational opportunity among men and women was thus seen as a crucial battle that feminist groups needed to win in order to forward the larger cause of gender equality in society. In most parts of the world, girls still lag behind boys when it comes to enrolment number, educational achievement, and educational opportunity. This side of gender disparity is most prevalent in developing countries such as those in West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa where a large number of girls are still deprived of quality education and gender inequality still persists despite the efforts of many feminist movements. Even now, women still account for the majority of the illiterate sector, and according to the annual report published this year by the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), women comprise roughly 64% of all illiterate adults worldwide. (UNESCO, 2006,p.60). This means that worldwide, women are still at a disadvantage as compared to men when it comes to education. The Other Side of Gender Disparity Gender disparity in education, however, differs from country to country. While the global numbers show that women are still at a disadvantage when it comes to education, there are varying trends especially between developed and underdeveloped countries. As mentioned earlier, most statistics from developing countries show that girls at a disadvantage. With many developed countries, however, another side of gender disparity has emerged. Instead of girls being at a disadvantage, most numbers from developed countries such as the USA and Britain actually show that boys are now at a disadvantage. In the United States, for example, studies now show that only 42% of the entire college population is comprised of men. (Lewin, 2006,p.1) The same trend reveals itself also in Britain. For the past decades, the number of women enrolling in British colleges has been on a steady rise while the numbers for men have been on a decline. In 1992, women already made up 45% of the college population, a very big leap from the early 1960s wherein women only comprised 25% of national college population. (Equal Opportunities Commission, 1999, 3) As of the schoolyear 1996-97, college women in Britain already outnumbered college men, making up for about 52% of the entire college population. This is also consistent with Scotland and Wales, which both have 53% of its college undergraduate population composed of females (EOC, 1999, 6-7) This means that at present, more women in Britain are getting college degrees as compared to men, something that would have been unheard of in the early 20th Century wherein women only comprised a very small percentage of the college population. Taking a deeper look at this increase in female participation in education, the great strides undertaken by girls in the past decades clearly reveal them as a product of the Feminist movement which erupted in the mid-century and gained greater momentum in the mid-1960s and 1970s. The increase in female participation or enrolment in higher educational facilities such as colleges and universities clearly correspond with the rise of Feminism and the increase in employment opportunities for women. While most of the universities and colleges in England, for example, were already open to women in the early 1900s, the extremely low enrolment rate of women in these colleges largely reflected the sentiments of British society at that time which perceived a college diploma to be an unnecessary commodity for a woman. Although higher education was already perceived to be a desirable commodity for men at that time, it was not seen as such for women. This stemmed out of the earlier societal norms which pegged the marrying ages for women at a very young age as well as imposed tremendous pressure on women to marry. Upon marriage, women were then already expected to remain at home with the children. The employment of married women were also largely frowned upon by British society in the earlier part of the century such that marriage bars which prohibited married women from being employed in specific institutions were actually in place and were lifted only in the 1940s and 1950s. (EOC, 1999, 4) Even among the few single women and rare married women who sought employment, they only comprised a very small part of the labor force, accounting for only 29% of the entire labor force in Britain in 1911. (EOC, 1999, 4) Upon the legislation of equal electoral rights for women in 1928, and the dissolution of discriminatory mechanisms such as marriage bars in the late 1940s and 1950s, more employment opportunities became available for both genders. (EOC, 1999, 5) Consistent with this rise in employment opportunities for women was education's rise as a necessary commodity for women. Since women were now allowed to apply for several job positions and compete with men in getting such positions, educational attainment became necessary so that these women could qualify for the needed jobs. Other factors also contributed to the rise in female employment and female students in college education. Less societal pressure to marry at young ages, greater societal acceptance of working mothers, and a steady increase in the number of single mothers prompted increases in the number of women in the labor force, and consequently, in the colleges. As a result of these and other societal changes reflecting a transformation of woman's role in society, Colleges and universities thus found an increase in the number of women seeking higher education, thus prompting the spiking increase in the number of female students in college campuses. The wave of feminist legislation and social movements which erupted in the Post-War era brought on the general public acknowledgement and support for greater female participation and representation in schools. Female Overachievement vs Male Underachievement While the societal changes outlined above provide the foundations from which the rise in female enrolment emerged, they do not directly provide the cause of the gender disparity existing today in Britain. They do not explain why girls are now outperforming boys in both the higher educational institutions as well as in secondary schools. Although the disparity between the number of male and female college students may be done away with as simply being reflective of the real population trend wherein there are simply more girls than boys in the country, we still face the more difficult problem of achievement disparity among girls and boys. The problem of educational gender disparity in Britain was largely unnoticeable to the general population when it manifested itself only in the enrolment numbers. More recently, however, this gender disparity has gained wider attention upon the release of national achievement test scores that have secondary school girls surpassing their male classmates. In the year 2000, for example, the release of test results of the national exam in Britain showed "girls surpassing boys at A level for the first time and increasing their advantage in the General Certificate of Secondary Education.." (Myhill, 2002, 339) This disparity in the average test scores of boys and girls has shown itself to be consistent in the years succeeding 2000. While boys have been decreasing in number in the college population, their average scores in secondary national school examinations have also shown to lag behind that of the average scores for girls. Gender disparity thus becomes problematic when it shows a disparity not only in the enrolment numbers, but also in the educational achievement of boys and girls. Growing national concern regarding this phenomenon has effectively been triggered by the increasing disparity in annual test scores, resulting in the increase of researches aiming to uncover the causes for male underachievement in schools. Questions have been raised in regards to the effectivity of using similar teaching methods in the schooling of boys and girls, questions that are largely based upon cognitive differences between the two genders. For the most part, these questions have been directed upon whether or not boys are at a disadvantage when it comes to the measurement methods used by most schools and in the national achievement test. Many researchers in the field of education and educational measurement have come to assess the effectivity of Britain's educational system in addressing gender-specific cognitive differences among boys and girls. Many of these studies have targeted the measurement system itself as being disadvantageous for boys who generally perform better in multiple-choice measurements than in open-ended measurement devices such as essay writing and the like. (Myhill, 2002, 340) In the study conducted by Myhill, for example, differences in the classroom interaction patterns between boys and girls were observed to test the theory that boys would be less participatory and thus tend to underachieve in school. (Myhill, 2002, 342) Although one would expect that the observed boys in the study to be less participatory in the classroom interactions as compared to girls, there was actually no significant difference in the rate of interaction between male students and female students. (Myhill, 2002, 344) Other studies of the same vein have also been conducted to investigate exactly where the educational system is failing boys, but Though many concerned parents and researchers are now seeking to address the question of underachieving boys, there has also been another question of much interest inquiring as to whether the problem may actually lie on the phenomenon of overachieving girls. As mentioned earlier, the gender disparity currently manifesting itself in Britain wherein girls are outperforming boys is not a unique phenomenon, and is actually replicated in other developed countries such as the United States and Australia. (Myhill, 2002, 339) If we are to seek the cause of the gender disparity in the educational achievement of the two genders, educational methods and measurement techniques may not be the only culprits since these three countries do not have exactly similar educational methods in their public educational systems. The disparity may actually be caused not just in a small part by societal factors which demand more from girls in terms of educational achievement as compared to boys. The increase in female employment in Britain's workforce may indicate a healthy level of gender equality in employment opportunity but a deeper look at the employment scenario especially in terms of compensation reveals gender discrimination that may be fuelling girls to overachieve in college. Employers are definitely more willing to hire women now than before, but this does not mean that they are just as willing to hire women as they are in hiring men. For women to win a job over a male co-applicant, they have to show greater educational achievement. Women are thus pressured to perform better in school in order to have equal chances of getting employment since men are still the preferred employees. This preference for men is further supported by the fact that even in the same job positions, female employees are bound to be less paid than their male colleagues. Even in the year 1999, the average salary for full-time female employees in Britain was only equivalent to 81% of the average salary for full-time male employees. (EOC, 1999, 5) The same gender disparity in average salaries is also reflected in the United States wherein "..men in the work force have always done better in pay and promotions, in part because they tend to work longer hours, and have fewer career interruptions than women, who bear the children and most of the responsibility for raising them." (Lewin, 2006, 9) For a woman to earn the same as a man, therefore, she would be expected to make up for what is seen as inherent disadvantages on her part brought about by the fact that she is female. The existence of employer perceptions in regards to disadvantages in hiring female employees thus pressure women to overcompensate through educational achievement. Women are thus pressured to perform better in school so as to compensate for "female disadvantages" and to earn the same opportunities and salaries as her male colleagues. From these observations, it would not be far-fetched then to blame the educational gender disparity between men and women as being linked to existing gender disparities in the work force, not in terms of gender representation but in terms of gender perception. Although women are now widely accepted as employees in generally all companies, their economic and career growth still demand greater educational investment from them than would normally be demanded from their male counterparts. The gender disparity that places women ahead of men in terms of educational achievement may, ironically enough, be a result of gender discrimination in the workplace against these same women. Conclusion Britain's problem of gender disparity in the educational achievement of men and women is a phenomenon that may be treated as both a problem and a symptom. For the parents of the male students, it may be regarded as a problem for it places these boys at a serious disadvantage that may have damning consequences for their future. The prevalence of gender disparities in the secondary achievement tests are bound to greatly affect the proportion of male and female students who will be accepted to the top British schools. If the pattern is to be pursued to its expected end, then the female population may be expected to dominate top schools in Britain, to the disadvantage of their male counterparts. The appropriateness and effectivity of the co-educational system in fully developing both male and female minds does need to be seriously inspected. At the same time that this phenomenon impresses an immediate problem for the boys, it also provides a disturbing symptom of an even deeper problem deeply entrenched in gender discrimination against women. Although it may at first glance be perceived as a crowning achievement for the feminist movement, the forces that are pushing these young women to overachieve in the educational front may need to be examined and probed further in order to understand the very nature of these forces. Works Cited Equal Opportunities Commission (2006) Women and Men in Britain at The Millenium Lewin, T. (2006, July 9) The New Gender Divide: At Colleges, Women are Leaving Men in the Dust. New York Times. Retrieved November 30, 2006, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html Myhill, D. (2002) Bad Boys and Good Girls Patterns of Interaction and Response in Whole Class Teaching. British Educational Research Journal, 28, 339-352. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2006) Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2007 ed., Chap 2) Read More