UK: Boys failed by education system says Eton headmaster

Article here. Excerpt:

'Tony Little said that the different sexes required different teaching methods to bring out students' potential and that GCSEs favour girls more than boys.

He also blamed teachers for failing to realise that boys are "more emotional" than girls, despite the fact that girls "turn on the waterworks".

Mr Little, who co-hosted the International Boys' Schools Coalition Conference at the Guildhall with David Levin, headmaster of City of London School, said: “As a nation, we do not support and nurture boys, especially teenage boys, at all well.

“It is foolish to assume that boys can always be helped in the same way as girls. We feel our education system needs to face up to that fact.”

Boys, he believes, require a more physical and active style of learning. He said that an increased verbal element of GCSEs favoured girls over boys and that educational techniques had become skewed because of the male-dominated society of the past.

“It's assumed that opening up opportunity means giving a better deal to girls and women. I don't decry that in the slightest — we have moved hugely forward,” he said.'

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Ed. note: For those who may not know, Eton College, or Eton Boys' College, is a very prominent school in the UK. A lot of very well-known names have passed through it. That the headmaster of this school would speak out on this topic so publicly is quite significant.