The Wire

In spite of much educational attention lavished on boys in the past few years they’re still tending to leave school early. Figures released in South Australia today showed that four out of five boys have left the school system before Year 12. UniSA Education lecturer Dr Brenton Prosser says the system is still at fault – the efforts to keep boys at school are being made too late, in years 11 and 12, when research shows that they tend to get disenchanted at the year 8 and 9 level. He’s involved with a program which connects schoolwork with the surrounding community in an attempt to make it more active and relevant to boys.