Huge numbers of young people leave school without qualifications in an educational system with profound problems, writes BREDA O'BRIEN
RECENTLY, WHILE attempting to get rid of some books before the floors collapse from the weight, I came across Girls Don’t Do Honours, edited by Mary Cullen. It was published only 22 years ago. That may qualify as pre-history to anyone who actually sat the Leaving Cert this year, but it is an astonishingly short time to the rest of us, given that girls now not only do honours, but regularly outshine boys in academic results.
As a 2007 Department of Education and Science report, Sé Sí – Gender in Irish Education, points out, girls have been outscoring boys in English and Irish since the 1930s. What has changed is the extent of the difference. However, girls also now do better than boys in so-called “non-traditional” areas such as maths and the sciences. Applied maths was the only maths subject in which boys outshone girls in the 2009 Leaving Cert.
Some people frame the discussion in terms of gender wars, as proof that men are now becoming the oppressed species. Others wonder what the fuss is about. Is this not just a good news story for girls? Or is the “feminisation of education” a genuine concern?
The gender issue matters, but not because girls are achieving higher levels of honours. In fact, framing the problem in this way may be distracting from two deeper and related problems. The first is that, far from worrying about honours, there are huge numbers of young people leaving school without adequate qualifications. The second is that there are profound problems with our educational system.
Some 1,000 children fail to transfer from primary to second-level education every year. Some 17 per cent of 17- to 18-year-olds, that is 10,000-11,000 young people, do not sit the Leaving Cert, and nearly 2,000 of the expected age group do not sit the Junior Cert. For example, in 2005, around 6,900 boys and 3,000 girls did not sit the Leaving Cert. In the same year about 1,350 boys and 350 girls did not sit the Junior Cert.
At all stages, the majority of those who drop out are working class boys. That does not mean that all is rosy for girls. The Rape Crisis Network this summer highlighted a shocking reason why a significant number of girls drop out at second level.
Of 18 students between the ages of 15 and 17 who went to the Mayo Rape Crisis Centre after being raped, 17 dropped out of school early. It is estimated that the national incidence of rape in the 15-18 age bracket in 2007 (the last available figures) was 373, with 362 of these cases occurring in the 15-17 age group. If the Mayo figures translate to the rest of the country, in theory, rape could be the reason why hundreds of the girls who do not sit the Leaving Cert fail to do so. What on earth does that say about our society?
The majority who drop out do not do so because of such a traumatic event, but the other reasons are still not easy to address. There has been a great deal of concern about the lack of men in teaching, and I think that concern is valid. It benefits both boys and girls to have a greater balance. However, I don’t think it is the key issue.
There is a cogent argument that school, especially primary school, suits girls better. Boys benefit particularly from active, problem-solving approaches, which are hard to do in the average crowded classroom. Boys are more energetic, but often end up classified as disruptive. Girls have always learned to read earlier, yet boys and girls are expected to progress at the same rate.
Boys’ boredom threshold is lower, they have significantly higher levels of learning disabilities, and they are less compliant. For working class boys without significant educational support at home, school becomes a place where they experience failure and criticism. Is it any wonder that they can’t wait to leave? At second level, girls benefit from maturing earlier. There has also been a “feminisation of ambition” among the middle classes. Girls have now adopted what was considered to be a traditional male trajectory – establishing a career, travelling – while settling down to family life is relegated to somewhere in a misty future. Men’s role in life is much less clear-cut than it was.
Girls see the Leaving Cert as a necessary stepping stone. Therefore, girls are both more willing and able to knuckle down to work.
But if girls are doing better, all that tells us is that the system suits them better. It does not mean that they are better educated. For example, Brian Tubbert, who lectures in Froebel teacher training college, has been struck by the fact that while students entering the college have achieved high points in the Leaving Cert, they do not have the level of critical-thinking skills, problem-solving or innovation that he would expect. It is not their fault.
The Leaving Cert rewards memory, and ability to synthesise and re-present material, at the cost of many other valuable skills.
As Prof Tom Collins, head of the education department in Maynooth, said at the Merriman Summer School: “A school-based education system built upon ‘teaching to the test’ rewards compliance and penalises non-conformity.” He suggested that if our education system had placed greater emphasis on critical thinking, creativity and joy in learning, we might have avoided at least part of the economic mess that we are now in.
Our concerns about gender problems in education should not limit themselves to boys, and neither should they focus on the Leaving Cert. We need to look at how well the whole educational system serves both boys and girls. The earlier interventions are made, the more successful they will be.
Failure to intervene is expensive indeed. For example, while not at all suggesting that every early school-leaver is doomed to a life of crime, it is no coincidence that the average age of school-leaving for the Irish prison population is 14½. Some 56 per cent of prisoners have never sat any exam at second level. It costs over €92,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail. If a fraction of that went into early intervention, think how much human misery could be prevented.