- Single-sex schools may cease to exist in 20 years according to a new study
- The study found students at co-ed schools learn faster than those in single-sex
- Researcher Katherine Dix believes single-sex schools will be gone by 2035
Single-sex schools may cease to exist in 20 years, according to a study which claims there is no benefit to separating students by gender.
The study was carried out by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and compared results for year 3, 5 and 7 students.
It found students at schools with both boys and girls learn just as fast and in some cases faster than those at single-sex schools.
The study found students at schools with both boys and girls learn just as fast and in some cases faster than those at single-sex schools (stock image)
Students at single-sex schools had better results, but they improved slower than students in co-educational classrooms.
ACER researcher Katherine Dix said students are ‘significantly more likely to outperform students in co-educational schools in reading and numeracy achievement over time’.
‘In terms of the compounding influence of being in a single-sex school over time, there appears to be no value-add in numeracy achievement and even a decline in reading achievement over time in single-sex schools compared to co-educational schools.’
She said the number of single-sex schools was trending down, and at the current rate there would be no single-sex independent schools in Australia by 2035.
The data was collected from 55 girls’ schools, 33 boys’ schools and 2909 co-educational schools.
Researcher Katherine Dix said the number of single-sex schools was trending down, and at the current rate there would be no single-sex independent schools in Australia by 2035 (stock image)