Female Supremacy Articles

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In literacy skills, 15-year-old girls are ahead of boys in every one of the 43 countries in the OECD survey. In the UK, the gap in literacy scores between girls and boys at this age is 26%.

And this school-age gender gap leads to an increasingly stark difference between the success of male and female students in getting into university.

In New Zealand, 89% of women enter university, compared to 62% of men. In Iceland, 80% of women go into higher education, compared to 42% of men.

In the United Kingdom, the figures for 2001 show that 49% of women entered university, compared to 41% of men.

And Andreas Schleicher says that much of the rapid growth in higher education places and the larger number of students staying in education can be directly attributed to this growing academic success of women.

But why should boys be falling behind, in so many different countries?

Andreas Schleicher says there are "troubling signs" that boys are more susceptible to being put off education by disruptions in their home environment.

Boys seem less able to overcome obstacles to education, he says, whether it is peer group pressure or a lack of family support.

Girls keep outstripping boys in exams

BBC News

August 14, 2003

Girls are continuing to outperform boys at A-level, figures show.

In fact, at the top end the gender gap is widening, with the growth in the number of girls gaining grades A to C being greater than the rate among boys.