Girls tend to outdo boys academically at a younger age
although this gap closes as they enter their late teens and early
20s.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education (MOE) showed
that in the last 10 years, girls performed "slightly better" than
boys in the Primary School Leaving Examination. Girls were around 2
to 3 percentage points over-represented in the top quintile, and
about 3 to 4 percentage points under-represented in the bottom
quintile.
At the O levels, girls were around 1 to 2 percentage
points over-represented in the top quintile and about 1 to 2
percentage points under-represented in the bottom quintile.
But there was hardly any distinction in qualification
to the tertiary level. The numbers of males and females pursuing
degrees in local universities have been comparable over the past
three years, said the ministry.
For instance, out of a total of 18,126 undergraduates
in the 2015 intake for the six publicly-funded universities, 9,192
were female.
An MOE spokesman said these figures reflect global
trends in educational results by gender.
Worldwide,
girls are better readers than boys across all age groups up to
upper secondary.
For
mathematics and science, girls also generally do better than boys
up to lower secondary but boys outperformed girls at the higher
levels.
The disparity
in performance between boys and girls is "a complex issue that
depends on various factors, such as the subject matter, students'
education level, motivation level and behaviours and the education
systems", said MOE.
A 2015 report
by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
on gender equality in education stated that boys' poorer
performance in school is likely linked to their behaviour rather
than "innate differences in ability".
For example,
boys reported that they spent one hour less each week on homework
than girls, more time playing video games than girls and less time
reading for enjoyment.
But MOE also
noted that Singapore's gender gap in results is not as evident as
in worldwide studies. In the latest 2015 Programme for
International Student Assessment, for example, the difference in
reading ability between 15-year-old girls and boys in Singapore was
smaller than most other countries' and the OECD average.
The spokesman
for MOE said the ministry has initiatives to support academically
weaker students, regardless of their gender, such as learning
support and remediation programmes.
Psychology
experts and educators contacted said while boys and girls develop
differently, parents should not oversimplify how they learn,
especially at a young age.
Psychologist
Daniel Koh from Insights Mind Centre said girls tend to be better
listeners and are more receptive to details - qualities which make
for more effective learning.
Boys, on the
other hand, get bored and distracted easily, needing more
stimulation and space to pay attention, he added.
They also tend
to do better with practical and performance-based tasks, which
feature more at later stages of education such as polytechnic and
university.
But Assistant
Professor Ryan Hong from the National University of Singapore's
psychology department said research has largely yielded gender
similarities rather than differences.
And these
differences, like in maths or verbal reasoning, are usually small,
he added.
He noted
though that males here may have "matured in the course of national
service and that allows them to be more focused and responsible in
their university studies".
Mr Koh added:
"Boys at times also take longer to determine what they want to do
or find interest in something... They usually grow in maturity and
discipline by the time they finish army."
Madam Esther
Yap, 50, said her daughter, now 18 and in her third year of
polytechnic, matured faster than her son, who is now 16.
"From primary
to secondary school, he just liked to play computer games. Only at
the beginning of this year in Secondary 4 when my daughter pushed
him to think about his future, then he focused more on work," added
the sales coordinator.
Her son wants
to study engineering in polytechnic next year.
"I wasn't
worried. I knew he would make it when he knows what he wants to
do."