Ministry of Education to take a leaf out of Australia's book

The Ministry of Education is looking at adopting an Australian project which sees retired men help boys fix bikes, to boost the performance of under-achieving male students.

The Education Lighthouse Schools Project has been running since 2002 and uses role-modelling and "boy-friendly" classroom projects to change boys' attitudes to school and learning.

Steve Benson, senior manager of learning policy frameworks at the Ministry of Education, will tell a boys' education conference today that the keys to closing the gap between boys and girls are literacy and helping disaffected students.

It comes after Dr Paul Baker, rector at Waitaki Boys High School, criticised the Government's response in dealing with low achievement among boys. There had been "denial, delay and trivialisation" from the ministry, he said.

Mr Benson said it was vital to remember that boys were generally performing well. That was backed by statistics from the 2005 NCEA exams, which showed 843 of the elite Scholarship awards went to boys and just 341 to girls.

But there was an average gap, with girls doing better, and it was mirrored in "almost every comparable country".

Mr Benson said there was plenty being done to address the issue, including $32 million a year spent on literacy projects.

Assessment was all about literacy, he said, and while boys lagged in reading and writing they were bound to stay behind girls in academic achievement.

Under one strand of the Australian project, retired men from communities in New South Wales help boys to repair bikes. General behaviour and academic performance had improved since it was introduced, Mr Benson said.

Another project allowed boys in Victoria schools to develop an online company dealing with the economy, which lifted numeracy scores.

A version of the project in New Zealand is likely to be a pilot involving a cluster of schools and focusing on Maori and Pasifika boys.