Figure 1.--We note at the primaty level that in coed schools the girls and boys tend to cluster together both in class, but even more so in the play ground. |
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The proponents of coeducation believe that the environment of a coed school offers the best opportunities for the social, emotional, and intellectual development of boys and girls. They point out that life is coeducational and insist that coeducation produces well-adjusted young people.
Proponentsd believe that there are several benefits to coeducation:
Setting: a setting for the development of balanced human relations.
Environment: creating a more "natural" environment.
Atmophere: students learn confidence, cooperation, and constructive competition.
Effectiveness: students learn more effectively and are better challenged to excel in coed groupings.
Respect: encourage mutual respect and understanding.
Opportunity: allows equal educational opportunity and access to participate in extra-curricular activities and leadership experiences.
Interestingly many of the factors which propnentsd of coeducation focus on stress social goals rather than academics leading to questions concerning what the primary goals
of the schools are. Proponents of coeducation stress that separating boys and girls can harm a child's social development. The authors, however, know of no research substantiating this fear.
Coed schools tend to dismiss the idea that students at single sex schools can concentrate more on their studies. They point out that an analysis of New Zealand national bursary and scholarship results in 1993 showed that 2 of the 3 all-round scholars were girls from coed schools and 16 top scholars were females, 12 of whom were from coed schools. These statistics, however, may reflect the greater number of coed schools and students rather than the effectiveness of the academic program.
Questions such as gender policy are extremely complicated and the authors do not pretend to address this and other educational issues in a serious academic sense. We do attempt, however, to provide some background information to better understand New Zealand schools. More importnatly for this book is to understand what the students themselves, validly or invalidly think about the issue. New Zealand students have given considerable thought to the issue of single-gender schools and coeducation. The authrs stress that these opinions are presented to show the range of opinions held by the students, nit because they are all valid arguments, although many are indeed penetrating assessments.
The dictionary definition of co-ed is – co-education is the system of educating boys and girls together at the same school. The points I am going to talk about are: 1) Interaction with girls, 2) Preparation for later life, 3) More competition, and 4) Boys keeping up with girls. Firstly, interaction with girls is important, just say all boys went to a single sex school and girls the same. Boys and girls would never interact and this would cause a lot of sexism. Secondly, getting prepared for later life. If we don’t interact with girls earlier in life I think it will be harder to interact with them later in life. Next I am going to talk about competition between girls and boys. Everywhere in the world you look there is competition. If you only had single sex schools the competition would only be between boys and co-ed schools both boys and girls provide competition. Last, but not least, boys keeping up with girls. In the world today there is a strong desire to keep up with the person in front. It’s the same in co-ed schools. A boys got to keep up with a girl in cooking or sewing. I hope these points will convince you that co-ed schools are better.
By Hayden Grey, Nelson Boys' College, Form 2, 1999
Firstly I think that single sex schools are wrong. I am strongly going to convince you with my four points that it is wrong. For a start off I know most of you guys get heated up around girls, don’t you. In the future as an adult this could affect you. You are going to have to face girls some day or another in life whether it is travel, job interviews etc you will face them. This is where co-ed schools come in instead of single sex in your younger days, if you start off at a co-ed school there will no worries for you in the future. You will gain confidence with girls and know how to handle them without getting stressed. So why not a co-ed school? Another quality point of attending a co-ed school is that you will learn to respect girls in the future. This is becoming a problem in our society. Men and young men are NOT respecting girls and women this leads to abuse. If young men are introduced to women later there would be a reaction such as showing off which could lead to a serious event. Conclusion: So it is up to you – do you want to face all those worries. Maybe you won’t face them but most will so put the worries behind you and attend a co-ed school.
Asnley Gill, Nelson Boys' College, Form 2, 1999
