Lack Of University-Trained Women

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31360, 4 May 1967, Page 10

Lack Of University-Trained Women

The universities and many interested groups in the community are concerned at the lack of university-trained women. Last year two very different types of television programmes provoked a considerable amount of comment on women, their interests and education. The education of women is a comparatively new field when considered in the light of human history. Even today there are many countries where it does not exist in any shape or form outside the home. Women in the past have been man’s chattels, saleable

goods, playthings, ornaments in the home, or goddesses. It is very seldom they have been his equal, his confident, his life-long companion, his friend or his competitor. Last century, a few courageous women in England set up schools for girls modelled on boys’ secondary schools and they attempted to educate girls to a level hither to undreamed of. Many interesting books have since been written about these times and also about the growth of education of girls here in New Zealand.

Since then we have seen the development of the co-educa-tional school and the gradual lessening of the true girls’ school as an educational force. Some women very much regret this for various reasons. Perhaps this growth in coeducation is connected with the low numbers of intelligent girls in the university.

What is the position of the reasonably bright little girl when she enters the infant class as compared with her male counterpart? Little girls seem ready to tackle reading when they enter school, more quickly than boys. The bright ones grasp quite rapidly what is needed and they gain promotion through the reading programme faster than boys. Subsequently they often move through the infant classes without completing their full two years and go into standard one where they compete against boys who are older than themselves and the average and below-average girls who have had the full two or even three years in the infants. They cope reasonably well in school but are not at the top of the class. Handicapped Socially and in sports they are handicapped physically by their lack of muscular control and general maturity. They continue in this set-up ail through primary school. Each teacher takes them for one year and their parents have them all their lives and have to keep reminding the teachers of their daughter’s age. They go into secondary school and by their marks they are channelled into the middle group of courses which would seen to suit them.

The girl who has her birthday from November to December is a very fortunate girl if she is reasonably intelligent. She will show up in her true light and will go into the high-ability group heading for university work. The little girl who does manage to get into the right course will be competing at the sixth-form level in a coed, school with boys who are often a year or six months older. She would need to be a very able girl to do that. Often the decisions made by infant teachers and infant mistresses can affect the whole career of the intelligent little girl and ultimately the numbers of women graduates coming from the universities.

It has been suggested that one school take all the brighter children and take them on; but loyalty to the other members of the family and to friends and neighbours would be adversely affected by such a system.

A better suggestion would seem to lie in the enriched curriculum, starting in the

infant room, for the more able girls and the boys. Once they have grasped the reading skills, more emphasis could be given to the mathematical skills, which many girls are weak in. There is a whole field of research, which the universities will need to tackle if they are really concerned about women graduates. Perhaps the University Womens’ Association should also do some thinking about this problem.—E.H.