An ex minister of the current government here in St Vincent has express concerns about the gender gap mainly at the tertiary level of the education sector.
Former Culture Minister, Rene Baptiste highlighted the issue during the Sir Dwight Venner Memorial Independence Lecture.
She said they are trying to figure out what happened after the 1950’s when most of the graduates were males.
According to the World Bank study, In recent years, gender dynamics in education in the English-speaking Caribbean have undergone significant shifts.
On the one hand, educational access, retention and attainment by girls have improved significantly and should be celebrated as key success stories.
On the other hand, retention, completion and attainment by boys appear to be slipping.
The question at the center of these changes is whether the decline for boys is relative (boys only appear to be declining because girls are doing so much better) or real (fewer boys are reaching their potential than was the case in the past).
Head of the UWI open campus, Debra Dalrymple said efforts are being made to address the issue of the gender gap balance by reaching out to more secondary school boys to make decisions and setting goals.
