“This trend is worrisome,” warns UNESCO, noting that strong math skills are key to fueling economic and social development, promoting innovation and finding solutions to pressing global problems. The analysis was done in cooperation with the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement and is based on data from the TIMSS survey, reports HINA.
It is an international survey of trends in knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences, and the data was collected between 1995 and 2023 in 47 countries and territories at the end of the lower grades of primary school and in 38 countries in the upper grades of primary school, including Spain, China, Australia and the United States of America.
Although girls have historically underperformed boys in math, that gap narrowed significantly during the 2000s and 2010s, the authors said. However, as of 2019, the trend is turning again.
In 2023, boys perform better than girls at the end of lower primary school in 81 percent of the countries analyzed, compared to 52 percent in 2019, 39 percent in 2015, 41 percent in 2011 and 26 percent in 2003.
Differences are also visible in the distribution of knowledge levels. In 2023, 21 percent of countries had a higher proportion of girls who did not reach the minimum international threshold in mathematics at the end of lower primary school, compared to four percent in 2019 and two percent in 2015.
At the same time, since 2007, the share of countries where boys have an extremely low level of knowledge has been continuously decreasing, so that in 2023 it has almost disappeared (two percent). In the upper grades of primary school, the situation is somewhat more complex, but the trend remains worrying.
Although the proportion of countries where boys outnumber girls is lower than in lower grades, it continues to rise in the long run. UNESCO and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement attribute this deterioration in part to the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as prolonged school closures have widened the backlog in math and undermined girls’ confidence and engagement.
In order to stop this trend, the two organizations are calling for action from the earliest grades of elementary school – through strengthening girls’ self-confidence in mathematics through interesting activities, educating teachers about gender bias in order to combat stereotypes, and introducing systematic monitoring of results by gender.
(Vijesti.ba)
