Educationists
and parents have diverse personal views when it comes to single sex
schooling. This Buzzle article tries to list out the pros and cons of
single gender schools to help you derive your own personal opinion about
this education system.
I am sure that this article has been
viewed by several young parents who are in the process of searching the
best schools for their first child. Choosing an appropriate school might
be a dilemma for some of you, but trust me, this problem is quite
common all around the world. Parents generally choose co-ed schools or
single gender schools based on the nature of their own schooling or
their social upbringing. If you are looking for the pros and cons of
single gender schools, then you have landed on just the perfect article.
Pros of Single Sex Schools
As a general observation, girls are seen to excel better in
languages, arts and social sciences, while boys are more inclined
towards mathematics and sciences. With a few exceptions, this
observation is valid in majority of cases. This inclination to
excellence in a particular field is on account of differences in brain
development, ways of mental processing and responses to senses between
the two sexes. Single gender schools can help children of a particular
gender to excel in their key strong points.
It is observed that
girl students from gender specific schools excel better in sports
activities while boys excel in arts and dramatics if they learn in an
environment without fear of ridicule from the opposite gender.
Single gender schools generally appoint teaching faculty of the same
gender as that of students, viz. Girls schools usually have female
teaching staff while boys schools usually have male teaching staff. This
helps to enhance comfort level and increase interaction between
students and teaching staff.
Single gender schools may help young
students to look out for careers beyond the gender specific
stereotypical professions. With exposure to different career options in a
single gender education environment, students can freely choose their
dream profession without any genetic bias.
There are certain soft
skills and leadership skills that are generally associated with female
students only. However, such skills can be equally developed by students
of both genders in a single gender education system.
One really
important advantage of single gender schools is that it allows the
desired level of privacy and confidentiality that students crave for
around the puberty stage of their lives.
It is easier for students to cope with pressures of studies, if classes are tailor-made to suit their gender.
Cons of Single Sex Schools
Drawing from the principles general child psychology, there is a
general attraction between children of opposite sexes once they are at
the onset of puberty. For girls, puberty generally starts by age 10 and
ends by 17 while for boys, it starts by age 12 and ends by 18. Studies
show that children enrolled in single gender schools, tend to become
more aggressive towards the opposite sex as adults. Students from single
gender schools tend to be ignorant about the opposite gender, and are
said to be poor social performers.
Single gender schools negate
the chances of flow of ideas and studying technique between both the
genders. During higher education, students from single gender schools
find it difficult to study in work groups designed to comprise both the
genders. This is not on account of shyness but personal discomfort for
free interaction with the opposite gender. In a way, single gender
schools do not help the students to prepare for real life.
Such
schools do not allow healthy academic competition between both the
genders. Students may feel stressed with sudden academic competition
from the opposite gender once they graduate from schools for higher
education.
Single gender schools are capable of creating a gender disparity in minds of students from a young age.
As
parents, you will need to understand your own preferences after you go
through both the sides of this dilemma. I know, it will not be an easy
choice as we tend to doubt our own decisions sometimes. If you do happen
to enroll your child in single sex schools then all you need to do is
ensure that you help your child in bridging the gap to help achieve what
is lacking in his/her education system
