BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — Experts have called for targeted mentorship for boys, more inclusive teaching, skills and entrepreneurship training, to address the widening education gap in the Caribbean, where boys are twice as likely as girls to repeat grades or drop out at primary and secondary levels.

The experts have also suggested and encouraged stronger home-school partnerships to save boys in the region who face disproportionate challenges at all stages of education.

According to data from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, at the tertiary level, there are 124 women enrolled for every 100 men in Latin America and the Caribbean. This compared to the global average of 113 women for every 100 men.

An urgent call for action to help shift the dynamics came during the keynote session ‘Education for All: Creating Inclusive, Gender-responsive and Learner-centred Systems in Education’ at the regional symposium and policy dialogue on transforming education held in the Cayman Islands.

Panel experts identified various barriers that contribute to boys’ disengagement, such as traditional teaching methods that fail to engage them, a shortage of male teachers and role models, and social pressures for young men to become prematurely breadwinners due to absent fathers.

Dr Verna Knight, coordinator of the Eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Cave Hill, highlighted critical insights for achieving inclusive, gender-responsive, education, emphasising that while essential, access to education alone does not ensure academic success.

“In today’s 21st-century educational era we have learned that educational access cannot be assumed to mean educational success for every child. In many classrooms across developing countries one-third of our students are known to be physically present but disengaged from learning. They are in school but achieving no greater academic success than the child who is out of school,” Dr Knight said.

In the meantime, Lanre Chin, mentorship officer at the Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC), used the island as a case study, pointing out that while approximately 20 per cent of the national budget is spent on education, disengagement, particularly among boys, has resulted in high levels of incarceration.

“Instead of solely focusing on academic performance, the system can pivot towards more practical skills. We are in an environment with several needs. The system should be creating entrepreneurs, not workers, so the mindset of the boys needs to be shifted. This is why they’re not being engaged,” said Chin.

He added that to help increase engagement among boys and assist them in building practical skills, the JTC has employed methods such as building mentorship networks, skills training, extracurricular activities, and income-generating activities.

The panel of experts also recommended strengthened learning supports across pre-primary, primary, and secondary levels, universal screening at key entry points for early identification of learning needs, providing teachers with data from continuous assessments to help them design and implement customised in-class support, guided by Universal Design for Learning, and building strong partnerships between schools and families to support learning outside the classroom.

Other recommendations include public campaigns to promote active parental involvement, mandatory mentorship programmes for new teachers, and ongoing professional development for teachers to address the diverse needs of learners.

The experts also suggested national data collection to allow education trends to be tracked over time to guide policymakers to make evidence-based policy reforms.