Algerian women outpace men in academic achievement
2008-08-31
A recent report indicates a new reality in Algerian schools: females appear to be more interested in learning. They have surpassed male students in academic performance.
By Said Jameh for Magharebia in Algiers – 31/08/08
 [Said Jameh] Female students are outperforming their male counterparts in much of the Algerian educational system, with girls claiming more than 67% of the passing grades on the 2008 bac exams. |
A new Algerian government report finds fewer male students in high schools and universities compared to female students. Sociology professors attribute the change to male students' tendency to start work rather than continue their education, and to females' desire to attain a higher social standing through academic achievement.
According to the July study from the National Social and Economic Council (CNES), the higher the class level, the lower the number of male students. While male students outnumber female students in elementary and middle schools, the gender disparity reverses by high school, where there are an estimated 596,347 female students compared to 439,516 males. In university, females total 528,105, versus 410,662 males.
The report indicates a new reality in Algerian schools: females appear to be more interested in learning and have become outstanding achievers. They represent 61% of graduates of higher education.
Moreover, women are strongly represented in the intellectual elite in Algeria, CNES determined. Women comprise 37% of the justice sector, 50% of educators, 53% of health professionals and 32% of senior positions in the state.
The baccalaureate exams conducted last June reflect the new educational dynamic in Algeria. Females made up 67.36% of successful candidates, whereas the number of males who passed the bac was just 32.46%. A female student from Jijel also got the highest score in the mathematics division, a total of 18.34 out of 20.
Female students are marking high attendance and success rates in high school and university, while male students are leaving school to work, experts note.
The best evidence of the difference in academic motivation, says CNES chief Mohamed Seghir Babes, is the comparable success rates for females and males in the bac exams. Babes called on public authorities to promptly look for causes of the phenomenon and a solution for it.
Male students leave school to get a job. For girls, however, success in education represents full liberation from their families' control, Bejaia University sociology professor Bekakria Djoudi told Magharebia.
"Their academic brilliance helps them launch a career and hence depend on themselves, instead of being dependent on their families for support," he said.
He adds that women see education as a gateway to attaining status and assuming higher positions, thus liberating themselves from "stereotypical vocations such as sewing and cleaning".
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Ennem's Posted 2008-09-01
The numbers in this article speak for themselves. It is no secret that girls are more likely to work and make an effort to excel and succeed in their studies. However, there is no need to blame the fall in the boys’ levels on them leaving for work, because this is wrong… really wrong. Where are they able to find this work, Mr Sociologist? What planet are you on? Are you working for the government in power or in the service of science, which has no love for falsification and jerry-rigging. I beg you to please wake up and have the courage to speak of the dismay of millions of young people who have been thrown to pasture, feeling all the evils of society, before you speak about numbers the experts manipulatively and fraudulently bootlegged. And, as for these bac results that continue to be brandished as if they were a brilliantly won trophy, are they not erroneous? I know that I will certainly be pegged as a pessimist, but I still say that all of this is just lies and demagoguery. For a good long time now our schools have been stricken by this. Indeed, it has been notoriously well-known that the girls always get the best results because their gentle male counterparts begin to despair sooner, remarking how the horizon is completely cordoned off on the one hand and, on the other, that jobs are never offered to those with skills but, rather, those who have extensive connections or a full-ride scholarship. This is the sad and bitter truth of our country that no one has the right to conceal. Daring to pretend the opposite is like wishing at the height of August to eclipse the sun with a sieve. (And, this famous and popular saying goes for all the comments here.) And, if the boys quit school, the lycée or the university…
Ennem's Posted 2008-09-01
(Part II of my comment) And, if the boys leave the school or lycée or university, then it is because they have no interest in them from the time that they begin to understand that they are damned to unemployment from the very start. The author of this analysis attributes this decline in percentages to what he considers as them voluntarily leaving for work, but he is severely mistaken. The disgusted young people understand that they are damned to unemployment and prefer to put the apron on rather than spend years of hard labour only to find themselves being hittistes or simply just traffickers. It should be known that we are in a country where jobs are obtained not through competence or professional qualification, but through connections, corruption and regionalism. No one can ignore that certain positions are hermetically sealed off, for example: Sonatrach, Sonelgaz, ADE, wilaya and daïra government positions, APC, Custom’s, the Police, the Gendarmerie, the Army and so on. Are these jobs are inherited? Yes indeed, I tell you these jobs are inherited! Who can dare prove the opposite to me? From the very moment a job is created or left open, it is inevitably destined to an heir except under the unforeseeable circumstance that the job requires specific skills. In the “well-to-do” professions, it is imperatively necessary to have someone of rank perched high up in order for you to access that same perch, which will then allow you access to the ivory tower, so cleverly guarded and so carefully protected from all invaders. These you girls have all of my respect, and I am a father of three unemployed graduate daughters. (Part III to follow.)
Ennem's Posted 2008-09-01
(Part III of my comment.) I know that the rare jobs that they, the girls, manage to get come through certain schemes and condemnable practices that are imposed on them, and I know what I am saying. We are a country ridden with favouritism and the need to have connections. Venturing to talk about education in Algeria would require books upon books on the collapse of schools that are caught in the dangerous whirlwind of flawed reforms, which have done nothing but undermine the schools’ foundations, ruining them. Benbouzid and his narrow-minded servants have done more to harm Algerians schools than any scourge could have. It is the fault of Benbouzid and his licensed jerry-riggers that we are prancing around in the tail-end of the line of Third-World countries. As for the others, it would be better not to speak of them. As for the trickster Benbouzid, the only Minister of Education in the world and in the history of man who is able to announce the percentages for the bac during the month of October, there is no need to expect any worse. The charlatans of his breed are the worst enemies of the Algerian people, the latter having all the reason in the world to damn them and wish the worst misfortunes that exist upon them. Is it necessary to remind this distinguished researcher that his Benbouzid does not allow his own children to go to these schools, which he so wanted to paint the smiliest picture of. (Part IV to follow.)
Ennem's Posted 2008-09-01
(Part IV of my comment—final part) By God, in my modest French, I could write hundred of pages to describe the gloom and tragedy that has stricken the Algerian education system, but I prefer, on this first holy day of Ramadan, to go take a rest and to leave you free reign over your fantasies and analyses, which lack innocence. I would have preferred to read a critical analysis, not one that is apologetic to human stupidity. I am not bitter, though. —Sincerely, A.K.
المهندس/حسن البهكلي Posted 2008-09-03
This phenomenon is not limited to Algeria. It can be present in all Arab countries with a difference just in causes. Eng. Hasan Al-Bahkali.
Ennem's Posted 2008-09-09
To the administrator of Magharebia: I posted a three- or four-part comment some odd days ago on the topic at hand concerning the Algerian girls’ success during exams, and I remark with astonishment that only the first part was published. As for the other two or three parts, I do not know what became of them. This website belongs to the greatest world power, but it truly does not reflect this status. One gets the impression that those in charge work at a snail’s pace or are simply just sleeping. Elsewhere, when an Internet-goer goes on a website, his comment is published within a maximum of 24 hours. Don't be surprised to see that your website is not overrun with visitors. This is because you put the brakes on the comments. I advise you to be more open and, overall, less picky. I am sorry that you do not meet the hopes of the Maghrebis who would like to give there opinions on the events affecting their region and those that are going on throughout the planet. I already posted a similar comments addressed to the administrator, but it was completely blacked out. I had hoped to contribute in a positive way to the debate and I strongly wish that the Internet-goers’ comments will be posted online more quickly so that we may comment on them and offer our opinion. I wish you complete success with your website. And, to the Muslims I say “Have a great Iftar” —You have my brotherly respects and best wishes of success.
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