What are boys studying?

WE REMEMBER sometime in the late forties or early fifties, while the late Roy Joseph held the portfolio of Education Minister, a special national scholarship was introduced exclusively for girls. At the time, Trinidad and Tobago was still under colonial rule, when the traditional role of women had been confined largely to caring for home and family. As a consequence, the four national scholarships awarded during that period became the preserve of students from the leading boys’ colleges. But in those post-war years, the society was also in the ferment of change, its aspirations for self government and independence had gained an irresistible momentum and a new and more equitable vision for women was emerging. The national scholarship for girls was born out of that transformation effort, intended to open the field of education at the highest level for girls, encouraging them to strive for equality of opportunity by pursuing academic excellence. After a number of years, after it had partially served its purpose, the scholarship for girls was dropped.

We recall the introduction of this early innovative scholarship simply to dramatise the significant and stupendous turnaround which has occurred since then in the educational battle of the sexes, if we may put it this way. The enormity of it is illustrated in the simple statistics which President George Maxwell Richards included in his address on Friday to the Lakshmi Girls’ Hindu College, St Augustine, celebrating its outstanding performance in the A Level examinations this year. The President observed that, in the present academic year, 38 percent of the intake at UWI, St Augustine, were males while 62 percent were females. Now we already know that for several years, more female students have been graduating from the university than male students, but we still find the figures of entry given by the President both revealing and startling. It seems to us that if this trend continues, sooner than later twice as many girl students will be entering the university than male students, a situation that must have implications for the future of our society.

It is not that we have any problems with the academic emergence of women and their expanding role in the social and economic life of the country. Indeed we commend them for their achievement which demonstrates the level of their commitment and the depth of their aspirations. Since that all-girl scholarship, they have made remarkable progress. Our real concern is the apparently inexorable decline in interest in higher education among the country’s young male population. This, in our view, is a critically serious problem, one that requires an urgent, on-going, indepth analysis not only to determine the causes of such a troubling atrophy but also aimed at devising methods and strategies for reversing the trend. What are the factors, social and otherwise, that account for such a relative lack of ambition among our boys and young men? If a growing number, indeed the majority, no longer regard academic attainment as desirable for their own personal development and for the contribution they can make to their country’s development, then what else, we must ask, is attracting or absorbing their interest?

What are the implications for Trinidad and Tobago in having a major proportion of its male population poorly or under educated? What will be the result of the conflict between their rising expectations prompted by the impact of American culture and expanding electronic communications and their limited ability to satisfy these expectations? Is our country heading for more crime, more social unrest? Are we doomed to become a wine and jam society? These are the crucial implications we must consider and deal with before the current situation gets even worse.