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Mentorship programmes, national awareness initiatives and measures to combat bullying have been recommended to address the growing achievement gap in education between boys and girls in Bahrain, in a recently published UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) research paper.
In a policy brief titled ‘The Gender Achievement Gap in GCC Countries’, researchers from the Unesco Regional Centre for Educational Planning have highlighted girls’ stronger performance in international large-scale assessment (ILSA) exams, compared to boys, in the past decade.
“Over recent years, research has found that the gender gap favouring boys in education has decreased and, in many cases, reversed to favour girls,” the report notes.
“This trend, mainly reported through enrolment rates, is identified across secondary and tertiary education levels.
“While improvements in girls’ achievement are positive, the reversing of the gender gap could indicate negative trends in boys’ achievements that should be addressed, such as underlying school-related struggles to which boys are more susceptible, like bullying.”
The study uses data from three ILSAs – Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
Data for the ILSAs comes from a range of individual studies conducted between 2011 and 2019.
2016 data showing the difference in reading achievement between boys and girls across the GCC countries
Additionally, the study compares the perceptions of girls and boys related to the resources they have for learning, behaviours, attitudes and school environment.
In the reading achievement section, Bahrain girls, on average, score 44 points higher than boys, compared to Saudi Arabia where the gap is 65 points, Oman (47), Qatar (36), Kuwait (34) and the UAE (29).
In mathematics scores of 4th-grade students, Bahrain did not show a statistically significant achievement difference between boys and girls, while Saudi Arabia showed that women perform better on assessments by an average of 26 points.
At the 8th grade level, the difference between boys and girls becomes significant, with Bahrain showing a gap of 21 points, in favour of female students.
In science, 4th grade Bahraini boys lag behind the girls by 34 points – which grows to a gap of 51 points on a 530 point-scale, by the 8th grade.
When asked about preferences, at the 8th grade level, boys were more likely than girls to like mathematics, but more female students liked the sciences than the male ones.
Researchers have listed a number of micro and macro-level recommendations to help boys bridge this gap.
Data showing gender gaps in bullying perceptions between boys and girls in the GCC. The positive values indicate less frequent bullying than the GCC average, while negative values indicate that bullying is more frequent
“The lower achievement of boys is potentially associated with a higher prevalence of bullying and less favourable attitudes toward learning,” researchers noted.
“Working to increase the achievement of the lowest-performing students in the GCC countries, primarily boys, may help reduce the gender gap.
“It would also elevate the GCC countries’ overall performance in PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS.
“However, increasing achievement requires co-ordinated effort from schools and governments.”
Micro level policy recommendations include strong disciplinary and attendance policies, mentorship and tutoring programmes at schools to raise academic success, ensuring a range of additional classes, including those that support learning in reading, mathematics, and science, and improved physical activity.
Macro level recommendations include national campaigns against gender-related stereotypes in education and the workplace, flexibility in Arabic language curricula and choices of texts to read, policies to raise the status of the teaching profession, and promoting the value of education and learning across GCC countries.
naman@gdnmedia.bh
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