When the Department of Education released the school workforce statistics last year, it was revealed that the number of male teachers working in Britain had fallen for the fifth time in as many years. Compared to 2010, when a little over 1 in 4 teachers were men, last year the ratio had dropped to just 1 in 5.

That may not strike you as an issue – so what if our teachers tend to be female rather than male? The problem comes when you look at the effect this imbalance has on the ground. Girls are now much more likely to perform well at school. For example, at the end of primary education (age 11), only 22pc of boys achieve Level 5 or better in reading, writing and maths, compared to 27pc of girls. Seven years later, after A-levels, young women in the UK are 35pc more likely to go to university than young men.

Increasingly, key figures in education such as Ucas CEO Mary Curnock Cook are asking whether the gender gap in teaching has a role in the gulf in achievement between the sexes. Perhaps boys learn better when they have a strong male role model in front of the blackboard; perhaps female teachers have a subconscious bias towards girls.