While Malta may have the largest gender gaps in terms of employment, wages and corporate and political positions held by women, that may all stand to change in the coming decades, with Maltese girls significantly outperforming their male counterparts in the important educational areas of reading, the sciences and mathematics.
A multinational report published by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) this week showing a gaping divide in educational propensity between Maltese boys and girls found that Maltese girls at 15 years-of-age significantly outstrip their male counterparts in the areas of reading, the sciences and mathematics.
The study, ACER’s PISA 2009 report, highlights the fact that Maltese girls significantly outperformed boys and, in fact, account for the largest gender gap when it comes to reading across all 74 PISA 2009 and PISA 2009+ participants.
PISA is an international comparative survey of 15-year-olds’ knowledge and skills in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy, conducted by ACER. It measures how well young adults have acquired the knowledge and skills that are required to function as successful members of society.
When it comes to sciences, the report found that in Malta there is “a statistically significant gender difference in scientific literacy, favouring girls”. The gap was the largest gender gap in scientific literacy among all participating countries, along with those observed in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
The same holds true for mathematical literacy where, again, ACER highlighted a statistically significant gender difference in mathematical literacy favouring Maltese girls over boys.
Overall, Malta’s students were estimated to have an average score significantly higher than that of the lowest performing Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) country – Mexico.
The Maltese average, according to the report, was statistically the same as those for Serbia, Costa Rica and Bulgaria.
Sixty-four per cent of students in Malta were estimated to have a reading literacy proficiency at or above the baseline considered as adequate to participate effectively and productively in life. But Malta’s percentage compares negatively to the 81 per cent OECD average.
Malta, the report found, was notable among the 74 countries studied in that it has a “relatively large proportion of advanced readers but also a relatively large proportion of poor and very poor readers in the population”.
Overall, Maltese students’ estimated mathematical literacy average was the same as that estimated for students from Greece, and higher than those from Israel, Turkey, Chile and Mexico.
In Malta, 66 percent of students were found to be proficient in mathematics at least to the baseline level at which they begin to demonstrate the kind of skills that enable them to use mathematics in ways that are considered fundamental for their future development. However, the rating compared negatively to the 75 per cent OECD country average.
Maltese students were also estimated to have an average score on the scientific literacy scale that was statistically the same as those observed in Turkey and Israel.
In Malta, two-thirds of students were found to be proficient in science at least to the baseline level at which they begin to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to participate actively in real life situations related to science and technology.
ACER CEO Professor Geoff Masters commenting on the general results, said: “Girls not only tended to attain higher reading scores than boys, they were also more aware of strategies for understanding, remembering and summarising information.
“Students who are highly aware of effective strategies for learning who also regularly read a wide range of material, tend to demonstrate better reading proficiency than those who either have a lower awareness of effective strategies or read a narrower range of materials regularly.”
Professor Masters added that while school level factors account for a considerable proportion of variation in reading performance between schools, much of this is associated with socio-economic and demographic factors.
“This suggests that policies around governance, accountability, investment in educational resources and the overall learning environment are influenced by the social and demographic intake of the school,” he said.
“Schools containing students with higher socio-economic backgrounds tend to be more autonomous in their decisions about curriculum, make more of assessments for accountability purposes, have better student-teacher relationships and utilise more educational resources. Students attending these schools have better educational outcomes.”
The full report can be downloaded at:
https://mypisa.acer.edu.au/images/mypisadoc/acer_pisa%202009%2B%20international.pdf