The lost boys: Australia’s male education ‘catastrophe’

Australian boys are in the midst of an education “catastrophe”, landmark research has found, as they fall further behind girls in academic achievement and the search for high-skilled jobs.

Male secondary school students are far less likely to go to university than girls – with only a quarter of male government school students going on to gain a degree – and state governments are being urged to act to help close the gap.

The research also identifies the major career advantage that private school students gain compared with government and, to a lesser extent Catholic, school students, with analysis of 10 years of census data revealing they are roughly twice as likely to be employed in the most highly skilled professions such as medicine.

One state, NSW is defying the trend of private scho