Educational Performance: Boys

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I will continue where I left off. We also need schools to rethink everything they do to ensure that it is boy-friendly and not just girl-friendly.

The third theme is to be positive about masculinity in schools. Boys need outlets for their creativity, energy and natural instincts. They need to know it is okay to be masculine, and that masculinity is the equal of femininity. It is a positive thing to like cars, engines, building sites, getting your hands dirty and playing sport. It is also a positive thing to like dancing, painting, sculpture, acting and writing plays, but we must not shy away, at any level, from celebrating what traditional male or masculine roles are; they are what we as males were born to do. It may also surprise some ladies that some males can multitask. Some of us can cook, wash, sew and manipulate a Dyson without instruction and make a damn good job of it.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

rose—

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I will give way to the hon. Lady, who might have some personal experience of my skills with a Dyson.

[Patricia Gibson]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not going to pick up on those particular points. Those in the room expressed their views on that for themselves. Given what the hon. Gentleman said about masculinity, what would he say to international research on 1.5 million 15-year-olds, across a range of countries around the globe, which shows that girls do better than boys even in those countries where girls’ rights are severely limited and gender equality is appalling, such as Qatar and Jordan?

[Karl MᶜCartney]

Those are some of the points that we will discuss today—and might well do in the future, as the Chairman has indicated—so I thank the hon. Lady for her point.

We also like to compete at Scrabble, cards, Jenga, football, rugby, cricket, hockey and whatever else we might have the opportunity to engage in, and there is nothing wrong with that. I fear the over-feminisation of our education system has, and is, turning boys off education. We need to nurture men and play to their strengths. Boys want to be young men, and young men want to be grown men; that should be seen as a positive. Some say grammar schools could be the answer and they may be for some, but we need all schools to be successful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Unlike the hon. Member for Lincoln (Karl MᶜCartney), to whom I express my thanks for securing the debate, I do not believe that this is a one nation issue. It is a global issue, and we need to broaden the debate so that we can learn lessons from countries as far away as necessary.

From 2000 to 2010, psychologists at the universities of Glasgow and Missouri looked at the educational achievements of 1.5 million 15-year-olds from around the world using the programme for international student assessment. They found that girls do better at school even in countries where women’s liberties are severely restricted. Girls outperform boys in maths and reading in 70% of countries, regardless of gender equality. Even in countries such as Qatar, which is infamous for its lack of gender awareness, the girls still outstrip the boys in educational performance.

There were only three regions in the world where boys outperformed girls. Bizarrely, those places were Colombia, Costa Rica and the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. We should look at those places and see what they are doing that we are not. The better performance of girls than boys happens regardless of high or low levels of social, political and economic inequality, and there is no significant difference between performance in the United Kingdom and the United States. We need to look at such things if we want to address the issue seriously.

In Scotland, we have taken steps to try to address the issue, but clearly the causes are fundamental and deep-rooted. We need to address it on an international basis and learn from one another. No child should be held back by their background or gender. We need a serious debate about what is going on globally, and we need to tackle the issue with a more holistic approach than just looking at counties and constituencies. It is far more deep-rooted than that.