Male Underachievement In The Caribbean Education Case Study

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The primary role of education and the education system is to contribute not just towards the academic but also the social development of children. Many people are of the view that some educators fail to cater to individual learning needs and or learning styles, thus blame the school system for male underachievement in Caribbean Secondary Schools. According to Bainbridge (2015) underachievement occurs when a child's performance is below what is expected based on the child's ability. Cobbet & Younger (2012) assert that “boys’ underachievement in the Caribbean has been a high profile issue since the 1990s” but point out that the ‘extent of the problem, the extent to which it actually constitutes a problem, and the ways it can best be explained and understood have been deeply contested’ (pp. 611). Given this issue, educational underachievement of boys was the focus of a three year longitudinal study launched in April 2011by the Commonwealth Secretariat. Its mandate was to identify factors contributing to the …show more content…

For this reason, one could argue that while the school system may exacerbate the issue, male underachievement stems from many other disparate root causes which include social/environmental factors, intrinsic issues and family …show more content…

lack of financial resources, value systems and ensuing interest and encouragement in students school life also contributes to underachievement. It also cannot be discounted that historically males have been regarded as the head of the home. In the Caribbean, where we have a large majority of fatherless families, boys are sometimes either opting to or forced to seek employment to meet the family's socioeconomic needs. This pursuit means that a great many males are absent from school and or dropping out of school. Research has indicated that students’ academic outcomes are related to their socioeconomic status (SES) and gender (Jones, 2004; Lupart, Cannon, & Telfer,

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