Female Supremacy Articles - Page 5

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Of the top 20 Grade 8 pupils in the mid-year assessments of this former Model C school, only three were boys. Seven of the top 20 Grade 9 pupils were boys; and the figure rose to nine for grades 10 to 12 combined.

"I don't think girls are smarter than boys," says Grade 8 pupil Kayla Raa . "Girls are more capable of sitting down and listening."

Her buddies say girls do more homework and spend more time on presentations - even though Sibongakonke Mama cannot wait to get back to mixed classes. "It's so boring in class because girls don't want to get into trouble," she says.

Venter believes that girls thrive on the continual assessments of outcomes-based education. Boys, however, work less consistently and appear to prefer cramming.

While middle-class girls are following developed-world trends and overshadowing boys, the rate of boys dropping out is highest in rural areas.

In Eastern Cape villages like Cofimvaba one finds 60 boys to every 100 girls at high school, says researcher Barbara Valentine.

The experts speculate that boys drop out of school because they are - or think they are - more likely to find manual labour than girls.

The fact that educated women get higher marriage dowries might play a part, says Valentine.

John Snayers, principal of a high school in the remote Northern Cape village of Petrusville, speculates that it falls more to boys than to girls to help support families affected by HIV/Aids.