Why Boys Can't Keep Up With Girls

Is the future female? asks Lee Elliot Major in The Guardian. Ten years ago I wrote an article for the New Statesman magazine predicting as much, on the back of figures showing women for the first time making up the majority of university admissions - a transformation from the exclusive preserve of white, middle- and upper-class males that made up academe as little as 50 years ago.
Last week, a report by the Higher Education Policy Institute once again documented the relentless rise of girls in the educational stakes. Females now outperform males on just about every higher education indicator, at every university in the land (with the exception of Oxbridge entry, where the sexes remain tied), and in most degree subjects.
The educational gender gap has emerged as a worrying trend. Female pupils outnumber males two-to-one, for example, on university summer schools, the week-long visits to encourage more non-privileged students to consider elite research universities. The annual surveys of 11- to 16-year-olds, meanwhile, show that boys consistently lag behind girls in their aspirations to go onto higher education.
Full report on The Guardian site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0080 14 June 2009