Maybe you can explain how these things are connected: boys' apparent failure to take part fully in school; boys' falling marks compared to girls, especially in the median range of marks; the troubles of ADD kids; and the socialist left. It sounds random to me- well just a tad, at least

So it's all the fault of the leftists, right?

"So it's all the fault of the leftists, right?"

Right.

Gender imbalance is consistently strong in Indigenous education: two-thirds off the fifty-eight thousand university graduates are women. Of the 130,000-odd Indigenous people who have commenced university study since 1990, only a third have been male.

A couple of factors:

* gender-stereotyping of courses - STEM and business courses are more likely to be perceived to be in the men's domain, while teaching, nursing and social work tend to be perceived as in the women's domain; Indigenous men are that much less likely to enrol in teaching, etc.

* Aboriginal boys coming through secondary school still perform worse than girls, and tend to avoid the maths and science courses. Hence, not too many complete secondary school with the opportunity to enrol in male-stereotyped courses. It's likely that Indigenous women are enrolling in STEM courses at least as often men, not that those numbers are particularly strong, certainly not as numerous as they ought to be.

Currently, one could say with confidence that Indigenous university students tend to come from urban backgrounds, often with graduate parents urging them on. University 'support' programs seem to have abandoned the earlier outreach programs of the nineties - publicity, course promotion, career workshops, school visits - especially in rural and remote areas. So the 'low-hanging fruit' - the urban kids finishing Year 12 - enrol themselves, socialise and help each other through, and may not even be aware of any supposed Indigenous support services at their university.

So how to motivate Indigenous boys to focus on maths and sciences courses, if they aren't enthusiastic about teaching or nursing ? Perhaps dangle medicine and such high-aspiring professions in front of them as they are coming through primary school ?

And primary school is where it has to start: when I was involved in career workshops across SA and western NSW, 25 years ago, I was very inspired by the enthusiasm of children in upper primary school. In fact,

[TBC]

[continued]

In fact, one time, we sort of accidentally ran a career workshop with kids in Grade/Class Four (at Koonibba Community School, far-west SA), nine-year-olds, and their aspirations were amazing - again, especially the girls. Kids are thinking about careers - especially girls - at much younger ages than usually assumed. I remember one girl, one of triplets, runny-nose and all, who was thinking about being a lawyer, or a pilot, or a dancer. Beautiful. I hope she made it.

But special efforts have to be made to motivate and inspire boys to something beyond footy-player, pub-owner, station-hand. Or CDEP recipient.

Joe

our very best and brightest confined to inferior underfunded education models
Alan B,
what exactly is the key factor in funding or rather the lack of it, always being the cause of lowering the standard of education ? How does more funding improve education ?
Does a teacher/tutor's competence/mentality magically improve if more money comes their way ?
Judging by the evidence at hand I'd say that the cause for the lowering of educational standards is too much pay. the very same is the case throughout the Public service. More pay does not improve delivery, more funding fosters complacency compounded by incompetence.
The proof is there for all to see in our bureaucracies & the mismanaging in economics.
We must return to value for money !