Boys continue to outperform girls in STEM subjects despite years of government-led gender mandates and equality campaigns seeking to close the gap.
Data from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) shows that the state’s boys continue to obtain a higher number of top scores in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects than girls.
The rate of high-achieving boys in subjects such as Physics and Mathematical Methods is also often several times greater than that of girls, The Age reported.
Among boys, four of the top five and six of the top ten Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) subjects for Year 11 and 12 students were STEM subjects, while for girls only two of the top five and four of the top ten subjects were STEM related.
For maths subjects, General Mathematics and Mathematical Methods held the first and third spots for boys, with 1,188 and 771 boys obtaining top scores of more than 40 out of 50.
For Victorian girls, however, General Mathematics was in second place with 879 scores of 40+, while the more advanced Mathematical Methods was in tenth place with 281 – or a rate about three times lower than that of boys.
Specialist Mathematics was also among the top ten subjects for Victorian boys but it did not feature among the top ten subjects for the state’s girls.
Science subjects saw similar results, with Chemistry, Physics and Biology in fourth, fifth and seventh place for Victorian boys, with figures of 432, 427 and 350 respectively.
For girls, Biology came in fifth place with a figure of 640, Chemistry was in ninth place with 314, and Physics did not make it into the top ten for Victorian girls.
Scores from other states are similar, with last year’s New South Wales HSC results showing that boys obtained a higher proportion of top Band 6 results in select STEM subjects such as Advanced Chemistry, and that among NSW students who achieved a perfect 99.95 in their Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank (ATAR), 34 were boys while only 19 were girls.
This is mainly related to the dominance of NSW boys in STEM-related fields such as physics and high-level mathematics in which the state’s male students are disproportionally represented.
Male superiority in maths is also seen in Australia’s annual NAPLAN exams, with official data showing boys record higher average scores in numeracy than girls across all testing levels (Years 3, 5, 7 and 9), and that a greater percentage of boys score in the higher-achieving bands than girls.
This trend is also seen in the global PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) test, with the latest results showing that among 15-year-old Aussie students, boys had an average maths score 11 points higher than girls, with 53% of boys achieving the PISA national proficiency standard in maths compared to 48% of girls.
These results come despite intensive funding and promotional efforts by Australian governments to achieve gender equality in education outcomes, especially with regard to maths and other STEM subjects.
In Victoria, the state’s Labor government has already introduced gender quotas in the state’s select-entry high schools because of a persistent pattern of male-dominated enrolments, with two of these schools set to reach “gender parity” next year due to these sex-based mandates.
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