Chinese girls outperform boys in school

Chinese boys are being outperformed by girls in schools, China Youth Daily reported Wednesday.

According to research by the Shanghai Academy of Social Science, boys in Shanghai scored lower than girls on average in each subject, from third grade to third year in middle school.

The paper also said the number of female students entering college in 2010 was 330,000 higher than male students. And both first places in arts and science on the college entrance exam in 2012 were won by female students, among nine provinces and areas, including South China's Guangdong province, East China's Jiangsu province, Northeast China's Liaoning province and East China's Tianjin municipality.

Method of education is to be blamed for the results, said Sun Yunxiao, vice-chairman of the China Youth & Children Research Association.

What we teach and how we evaluate are the opposite of what boys are good at, Sun said.

"A lot of curriculums require students to memorize and recite, which are not an advantage for boys," said Kang Jian, former headmaster of the Affiliated High School of Peking University.

In 2010, research launched by the China Youth & Children Research Center showed that 2.4 percent of boys strongly dislike going to school, while the figure for girls was 1.9 percent.

A high school in Shanghai plans to establish an experimental boys-only class in March, using courses based on boys' physical and mental characteristics and offering more opportunities for exercise to increase their strength and endurance.