Many male students ‘just need a big brother’ – Minister
Statistics show that male students in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) are significantly over represented in risk categories such as school repetition, dropouts and special education enrolment, while being under represented in higher education.
Minister of Education, Vocational Training, Innovation and Digital Transformation Philip Jackson, spoke of about the statistics during a recent consultation on school violence, noting that every year a statistical digest is published and in the most recent publication, it spoke of the underperformance of males.
“So, it means while we start out at primary schools, go to high school, by the time we reach high education, there’s a fall off,” he said.
“…the digest highlights a gender disparity that warrants further attention,” Jackson added, while noting that males are disproportionately represented among students who repeat a grade at the secondary level.
“Males accounted for 65% of all repeaters. While the overall secondary school dropout rate is low, males accounted for 60% of these dropouts…if you look at those who pass five subjects, males are just about 45% while females are 61.24%,” the education minister said.
“…we go on to the community college…so, they leave high school…only 34.66% of males leaving high school end up at the community college, whereas 65.34% are female.
“So, we are losing our males in education soon after form five. We have to find out where they are, what are they doing, and how well they are doing, what they’re doing, where they’re doing it,” the Minister said, while stressing that “right in the classroom, there’s an opportunity for us to reach our males better”.
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