Educational sexism in Queensland

In terms of the cause of the evident sexist discrimination the 1992 results are interesting because we know that the maths/science results were unbiased but the overall OP was biased. Assessment in maths/science in those days was essentially all formal exams/tests; but the assignment fad had started to penetrate other subjects.

However by 2012 things had changed, assignments as opposed to formal examinations had spread to all subjects and sexism was clear and major in size.

In an earlier OLO article on this topic (Please look at the last page or so of that article) I referred to an old Parliamentary Inquiry Boys: getting it Right which pinned the blame for male educational weakness mainly on over verbosity. It is interesting to note that one of the recommendations from that Inquiry was: Assessment procedures for maths and sciences must as a first requirement, provide information about student’s knowledge, skills and achievement on the subject, and not be a de facto examination of students’ English comprehension and expression.

It is a measure of the overweening arrogance of Education theorists and organisations such as QSA that they not only ignore comments from the highest democratically elected body but continue on unmoved.

All the evidence points the same way: all assignments under any name must be eliminated throughout schooling in maths and science. They lower standards, encouraging bad science (verbosity is very bad science), reduce the number of experiments that are done and they are a part of the institutionalised sexism we see today.