In making science more 'accessible' to girls something was lost for boys. There was no 'plot' against anybody. The question, if it can be answered, is whether this change produces the best outcomes for science and society.

Science has not been a glamorous school subject in students' eyes for some years and perhaps this is wrapped up in the changes. Were the changes a response to this or the cause of it?

To bring economics into this debate I think is worth while.
Australia is at a cross roads, economically how do we sustain our current life style? We either drop our standard of living so we can compete with other nations with low wages thus making traditional manufacturing feasible. Or we venture into high technology (HT).
HT is the only way in which we can sustain ourselves. For this to happen we need as many skilled people as we can get. This outcome will effect each and everyone of us for decades to come.
It is imperative for all of us that those with the IQ are educated and educated well, regardless of sex or economic background. This has to happen for Australia to simply survive. To quote a previous PM "Australia faces becoming a banana republic", this wasn't true at the time. But is is now. If there is a problem, we need to fix it.

Susie,

I'm sure Ms Burrow does have male relatives but I'm also sure they would have been raised to 'respect' women. And we all know what that means: all criticism is misogynist and deference to the point of grovelling subservience.

Just look at TV shows like Who's Raymond or practically any other contemporary show where men are only ever portrayed as bumbling fools, while women are portrayed as strong, independent and of course always right.

These same people are the types who run our schools. It's such a shame our society feels it has to disadvantage boys so that our betters (females) can get ahead. It's a shame because China and upcoming countries aren't obsessed by putting females in charges (and hasn't that been a success). They are only concerned with winning in international trade and achieving the affluence that we so take for granted that we are willing to throw it away for 'equality'.

On a related note I notice women have finally achieved 'equality' in the Miles Franklin award. Or at least with only female finalists, that is what women would call equality.

Luciferase,

I'm amazed you say there was no plot against anybody. When you have a plethora of government and non-government agencies operating with the sole agenda of advantaging girls to the detriment of boys, it seems pretty close to a plot to me. I must admit that contrary to most plots there has been no secret to this one. Government agencies have funneled millions into programs for women and girls and been very explicit about it. They have completely re-written syllabi, teaching and assessment. They have locked men out of teaching. The list just goes on and on.

And you say there has been no plot?

Gee. I just though of a 'newspeak' joke: what do you call a plot with no secret? Government policy.

I refer you to eyejaws nice post, dane.

Luciferase, Eyejaw made the point, which I agree with, but due to poor phrasing failed to make, that the entire focus for the past generaion has been on making changes to assist girls, with little regard for the effect on boys.

There has been an institutionalised sexism based on the premise that boys are simply naturally better at school and that no matter what changes are made they will manage to cope. The femocrats who have implemented such policies hail the current situation as a success and our PM has acclaimed the achievement of policies that have seen girls outdoing boys in obtaining higher education qualifications at the rate of about 4:3.

at the same time there has been a push to turn traditional female trades, like nursing, teaching, even childcare into "professions", while traditionally male trades have been progressively devalued into essentially process-work in which competency-based "training" has largely supplanted the acquisition of genuine skills. A carpenter assembles pre-fabricated frames; a plumber doesn't know how to solder or form a pipe-bend and is barely able to make water flow downhill; a fitter is a part-changer who can't do any machining; a boilermaker is a welder, or a welding machine operator. Yes, changes in technology have done these things, but when changes in technology affected the female workforce, we were told they had to have their skills upgraded, so why are males left on the heap?

The trouble with boys' education is a symptom of a wider problem, which is the colonisation of senior bureaucratic roles by women who identify first, last and always as "feminists". Look at all the trouble Tony Abbott experiences for being perceived as insufficiently effusively pro-female, despite the evidence that he is surrounded by women in both his personal and public life. Now consider how little chance there is of any kind of policy that might be seen as being to the advantage of boys coming from a teaching bureaucracy dominated by those like Ms Burrows, or even that such a policy might be given consideration by career-conscious people. It would be career suicide.