Current achievement

Boys and men are behind at all levels of education. This trend can be seen as early as 1985.

Primary school

In years 1-8 fewer boys than girls are meeting national standards. The percentage of boys meeting or exceeding national standards is very slightly lower than for girls in maths (74.8 vs 76.2%), but there is a bigger difference for reading (73.9% vs 82.4%) and a bigger difference still for writing (63.9% vs 79.4%). The same trend is seen in Ngā Whanaketanga Rumaki Māori [1].

Secondary school

Secondary school students work towards the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA). NCEA has three levels of certificate, depending on the difficulty of the standards.

Overall achievement rates for students are increasing but boys lag behind girls at all NCEA levels. Fewer boys attain NCEA in the expected year of schooling (e.g. level 1 in year 11) and fewer boys attain each NCEA level before they leave school. The largest gap is for NCEA level 3. In 2015 60% girls achieved level three while only 46% of boys did. A 14 percentage point difference.

Gaps in achievement also appear in other assessment tools. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international survey which tests the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students. Boys performed better in Science and Maths but significantly poorer in reading.

Dropping out, suspensions and expulsions

Secondary Schools have four levels of consequences for bad behaviour. Stand-downs, where the students are removed from school for a few days and then automatically returns to school. Suspensions, where the student is removed from school and the board of trustees decides how to proceed. Exclusion applies to students under 16. They are formally removed from school and required to enrol elsewhere. Expulsion is students 16 and older. They are formally removed from school. There is no requirement for them to enrol elsewhere.[2]

Over time, boys have received stand-downs more frequently than girls students. In 2015, the age-standardised stand-down rate for boys was 3 times higher than the girl’s rate. A similar pattern occurs for suspensions. In 2015, the boy’s age-standardised suspension rate was 3.2 times that of girls.

Exclusion rates for boys were 3.8 times higher for boys than for girls. Expulsion rates for boys 4.7 than girls (0.5 per 1,000).[3]

In addition, fewer boys than girls stay in school until 17 (81.4% vs 86.5%).[4]

Tertiary education

Tertiary education in New Zealand covers a wide range of post-secondary school education. including private training establishments, polytechnics, wananga, universities and workplace training.

The New Zealand Qualifications Framework has ten levels that are based on complexity. “It is… a progression from ‘basic general knowledge’ through to knowledge which is ‘factual’, ‘operational’, ‘theoretical’, ‘technical’, ‘specialised’ and ‘frontier’ knowledge.” NCEA covers levels one to three.

Fewer men than women are participating in tertiary education. In 2015 8.5% of men and 11.0% of women were enrolled in tertiary education. Overall participation in tertiary education has grown but so has the gap between men and women. A large disparity exists between the amount men and women studying a bachelors degree, 2.8% of men compared to 4.2% of women.[5]

Fewer men are completing their tertiary education, compared to women. Although for honours degrees and higher there are slightly more men than women completing. [6] At tertiary level only 4 out 10 people who gain tertiary certificates, diplomas, or bachelor degrees and above are men. More women (54.1%) than men are qualifying in STEM.[7]

The result of the increased participation and completion in tertiary by women can be seen in the number of adults holding a bachelors degree where women now outnumber men.