Fathers are failing their sons by trying to be best friends rather than supplying the discipline they need, a top educationist said yesterday.

As a result of men abandoning their role as authority figures, boys are ‘grotesquely under-performing’ and falling behind girls at school, Barnaby Lenon said.

The chairman of the Independent Schools Council stressed that boys need love but said the best way to provide it is to give them rules, structure and discipline and not to try to please them.

Barnaby Lenon warned that boys are 'grotesquely under-performing' in schools

The warning to fathers comes at a time when young women have a one-third higher chance of going to university than young men, and projections suggest this trend will continue in coming years.

Figures show women now earn as much as men until they reach their mid-thirties, the age at which many choose to ease off in their careers after having children.

Former Harrow School headmaster Mr Lenon argued in a new book that much of the fault for the failure of boys lies in the family – in particular with fathers’ attitudes. He said boys were more likely to fail at school by getting into trouble, or through rudeness, poor discipline or lack of motivation.

‘Authority has been transferred from parents to children in the last 50 years and boys are paying the price,’ he added. ‘Sometimes dads are trying too hard to be boys’ best friends. Because boys particularly need firm discipline, they have become more disadvantaged.

Former Harrow School headmaster has argued that boys need 'firm discipline'

‘There is a reason to be worried about boys.’

His book Much Promise points out that girls are outstripping boys at school, university and in the early stages of their careers, and that modern women are likely to marry men who are less educated than themselves, a pattern only seen before in the years after the First World War. ‘In the past, women aspired to marry a man who was more educated than themselves but soon such creatures will not exist,’ Mr Lenon said. ‘Boys need disciplining by schools and parents. They need it and they can take it.’

He added that parents should set the same standards at home that boys get at school.

He suggested children should be punished by parents if they are rude, there should be strict bedtimes for younger teenagers, and evening and Sunday meals should be taken at a table with no TV.

Computers, tablets and mobiles should be used for no longer than an hour a day by children under 13 and only up to two hours by older teenagers, Mr Lenon said.

He added: ‘Parents look incredulous when I say, I think your children should stop spending so much time on the computer.’