School board ignores gender gaps

For many years there have been significant gender gaps in student achievement reported for all provinces of Canada and other member countries of the OECD.

The latest on “gender gaps” is reported by the Council of Ministers of Education in Canada (CMEC) and refers to two studies: Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), for nine-yearold students, and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 15-year-old students.

Some highlights from these reports are: consistent with other large-scale studies, Grade 4 Canadian girls performed better than boys in reading; at age 15, Canadian girls outperformed boys in reading; at age 15, in science overall, there was no difference in average achievement scores between boys and girls in Canada.

School board monitoring of these gaps can provide important insight into educational policies and lead to strategies for improving student achievement for boys and girls, but particularly in improving university entrance rates where boys lag behind girls in every faculty except engineering.

Unfortunately, annual reporting by Edmonton Public Schools gives us no data on the subject and reveals that the board is ignoring the issue.

On Oct. 16, voters in the Edmonton Public School District should vote for candidates who advocate regular reporting of gender gaps and the strategies being employed to reduce them.

Deryk Norton, Edmonton