Durban - South African girls aspire to greater academic heights at university than boys, says a new analysis of international education data.
The analysis of data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, by the Human Sciences Research Council, provides new insights into gender equity in maths education.
Researchers characterised the level of indifference among South African Grade 9 boys about their education as “worrisome”.
“Boys were found to have lower aspirations about their academic careers, showed less interest in maths, and engaged less often with an adult regarding their schoolwork,” they said.
The analysis also revealed that boys were at a higher risk of being victims of bullying than girls, irrespective of whether they attended an impoverished or affluent school.
“Taken together, these findings raise questions about how seriously boys take school, and how safe they feel in their educational environments.”
The influential study results were first released late in 2012.
The findings were that while for the first time since 1995 South Africa’s Grade 9 pupils had a better grasp of maths and science, they were still falling far behind their peers in other countries.
A sample of 12 000 Grade 9 pupils from 256 public and 27 independent South African schools participated.
The new analysis of the data by the Human Sciences Research Council suggests that maths performance has less to do with children’s gender and more to do with their school.
At better resourced, fee-paying schools, and at independent schools, boys who saw no value in learning maths achieved average test scores that were equivalent to boys and girls at no-fee schools who valued the subject highly.
Nearly 90% of girls at no-fee schools scored poorly in the study, performing below the minimum benchmark. In contrast, this was true for 27% of girls from independent schools.
Of the girls who attend independent schools, 90% planned to complete at least one degree.
Of the pupils who attend fee-paying public schools, 75% of girls and 65% of boys intended pursuing a university degree.
Only two in five boys boys enrolled at no-fee schools had their sights set on traditional tertiary study after matric.
Not only were boys more likely to be victims of bullying, but the number of pupils who were bullied on a weekly basis in South Africa was three times as high as the international estimate, the data says.
At no-fee schools, 43% of boys and 36% of girls were bullied on a weekly basis.
The same was true for 27% of boys and 18% of girls at fee-paying schools, and 24% of boys and 13% of girls at independent schools.
The Mercury