The boys-only experimental classes

(China) The first boys-only campus in Shanghai, an experimental program between the Huangpu district education bureau and East China Normal University, is an effort to solve the "boys crisis" in academic performance and cultivate masculinity. The boys-only experimental classes will open this fall.

The poor performance of boys in schools has long been discussed by educators and sociologists, who have hotly debated how to provide an appropriate education to boys.

The classes are still new to most parents in the country so the parents are taking a wait-and-see attitude about the experimental classes, which has just finished its application period.

According to the school, 272 male students have applied for 60 places of the two classes.

Wang Ronghua, director of the Shanghai Education Development Foundation, has previously claimed that the underrepresentation of boys in schools and in colleges will have a negative impact on the country's scientific and technological innovation.

He has also advised giving male students gender-specific education while simultaneously lowering the bar for them to enter college.

Lu noted that the boys-only classes will have different priorities than co-ed classes, with little regard for rote memorization, which boys are not good at.

(Source: China Daily)