DESPITE steady improvements in overall Primary Exit Profile (PEP) performance, Jamaica remains without a clear solution to the long-standing underachievement of boys in schools, prompting Education Transformation Oversight Committee (ETOC) Chairman Dr Adrian Stokes to warn that “a lot more” must be done to close a gender gap that continues to favour girls.

Stokes issued the warning at ETOC’s quarterly press conference at The University of the West Indies’ Regional Headquarters last week.

He argued that one of the country’s most persistent education challenges remains unresolved — boys continue to trail girls in key areas despite years of research into the problem.

This year’s mathematics results underscored the disparity. While 64.9 per cent of girls achieved the “proficient” level, compared with 57.2 per cent of boys, girls also edged boys at the highest achievement level, with 8.3 per cent classified as “highly proficient” compared with 7.7 per cent of boys. Boys, meanwhile, accounted for a larger share of students in the lower achievement categories.

Stokes said the gap could no longer be viewed as simply another statistic.

“The girls continue to outperform the boys in statistically significant ways. It’s not even close. The [Orlando] Patterson report highlights this issue, and indeed, all the entities that have taken a deep dive looking into the Jamaican education system — like the UNICEF report, the 2022 report — point out that Jamaica is one of the few places globally where girls outperform boys in mathematics, for example,” he said.

He noted that the Orlando Patterson-led education review had carefully examined the issue and identified several social and psychological factors affecting boys, but said Jamaica has yet to develop targeted interventions capable of reversing the trend.

“The Patterson report argued that the root cause was not favouritism. It’s not like girls are being given some advantage, knowingly. Rather, what the report highlights is that our boys, through social circumstances, or their abusive upbringing, cultural norms, but generally, let’s say, psychosocial issues that are putting our boys at a disadvantage… So the bottom line is, we have more work to do to find solutions that can close the gender performance gap,” he added.

Although the Ministry of Education recently announced plans to establish a committee to examine how boys are educated, Stokes suggested that would not, on its own, be enough.

“We need to do a lot more than that… Let’s say that’s a first step, hopefully, to something meaningful… We need real initiatives. We need to pilot different ideas. As I said, I am not certain that anyone has a full slate of answers… The question is, how do we respond? Or, how do we modify or evolve the education system to accommodate these psychosocial issues that are playing out in society? So, hopefully, it’s a step in the right direction, but I’m not expecting, just from that committee, to see significant change, a lot more needs to happen,” Stokes noted.

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dr Kasan Troupe agreed that the education system must now adopt more targeted approaches for boys, arguing that biological and social differences influence how they learn.

She said the ministry has already begun examining changes to teaching methods, classroom environments and teacher training.

“So, particularly, we have been talking about how we socialise our boys. Boys learn differently, boys like competition, and so that means our teachers have to be retooled. They have to be trained — we need the bingos, we need the dominoes, we need movements. There’s a whole raft of measures that we have to look at as it relates to how we are going to support our boys,” she said.

State minister Rhoda Moy Crawford struck a more optimistic tone, expressing confidence that the proposed committee would produce tangible results, pointing to the work already undertaken by ETOC since its establishment.

She also argued that the latest PEP results showed there was reason for hope.

“I know this committee that will be put in place to examine what we can do differently to benefit our boys, I know it will be a solid committee…and I’m also motivated by the fact that when we look at our recent PEP results, our top 10 students, out of those 10 students, seven were boys. So all is not lost,” she said.