Unhappy school days

The argument

A study from researchers at Cardiff University recorded the school experiences of more than 1,500 students across nearly 30 schools in England and Wales. They found that while females performed better academically, they were far less happy at school than boys — a finding this position builds on precisely because it separates two things usually assumed to move together. The gap in reported wellbeing was substantial. Nearly 25% of female participants reported feelings of worry at school, compared to just 16.5% of boys. 24% of girls also reported feeling like they didn't belong in school, compared with 8.8% of male students. The second comparison is the starker of the two: a sense of not belonging was reported almost three times as often by girls, in the same institutions in which they were achieving the better results. Whether that matters depends on what a school is for. Schools are not just places of academic discovery. They are also social spaces where children and young adults develop inter-personal skills that they will carry into adulthood, and the experience of being there is not simply the price of the qualification collected at the end. Insecurities and anxieties that develop at school will stay with them for a large part of their adult life, long after the grades have stopped being relevant to anything. Measured that way, better results purchased at the cost of worry and exclusion is not a benefit at all. The fact that girls feel less comfortable and unhappier in the school setting should be cause for alarm and indicates that schools, in their current format, do not benefit girls more than boys, but can cause them life-long pain and hardship.

Context

While girls may secure better academic grades than boys, research shows that their overall school experience is far less pleasant.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The primary function of the school system is to educate. Therefore, when measuring the school system's fit-for-purpose it is imperative the scope is kept limited to academic outcomes. To argue that the school system does not benefit girls more because of their mental health outcomes is like saying the transportation system benefits one demographic over another because they enjoy being on buses. The purpose of the transportation system is not to entertain or please, but to transport people from point A to point B, just as the purpose of the education system is to educate. Any assessment of the school system's performance should be limited to academic and educational outputs and the demographics that over or underachieve. Happiness levels are not relevant to the discussion of whether the system is weighted towards female achievement.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejectng P1] The school system's function is to educate. Any assessment should look at how well the system performs its function. Therefore, student happiness is not relevant to a debate on the school system's performance.