Why boys lag at school in SA, and what masculinity has to do with it

Boys who become disconnected from education become more vulnerable to rigid and harmful ideas about manhood, including bullying, violence and unequal attitudes toward women.

In South African classrooms, a quiet pattern is becoming harder to ignore: boys are falling behind in school. Emerging evidence from Stellenbosch University shows that boys are performing worse than girls in reading and mathematics and are more likely to repeat grades and drop out before completing secondary education. This is not just a pattern in South Africa – it is a trend increasingly documented in many countries across the globe.

This pattern has become politically toxic in the United States, seized upon by those who want to roll back progress on gender equality, while researchers and practitioners have consistently offered a more nuanced, structural account of what is actually driving it. South Africa does not need to import that culture war. The evidence demands a clearer understanding of how gender shapes learning for boys and for girls, not a political position.

This isn’t just about schools failing boys. It is about the stories boys are told about who they are allowed to be. It shows up in the cultural scripts boys grow up with: the class clown who shrugs off homework, the boy who would rather be anywhere but at his desk, the quiet understanding that trying too hard isn’t cool. From Diary of a Wimpy Kid to Big Nate to the endless scroll of TikTok skits where school is something to survive rather than engage with, boyhood is often narrated through resistance.

These aren’t harmless tropes. They are part of a broader script about masculinity – one that shapes how boys show up in classrooms long before they fall behind in them.

Boys’ educational disengagement matters not only for boys’ educational outcomes, but for broader societal health. Boys who become disconnected from education become more vulnerable to rigid and harmful ideas about manhood, including bullying, violence and unequal attitudes toward women.

When learning starts to feel like a mismatch

In South Africa, research from Dr Gabrielle Wills at Stellenbosch University shows that boys are more likely to repeat grades at every level by between two and 12 percentage points, and are less likely to complete secondary school, with 57% of young men completing Grade 12 compared with 64% of young women.

The gender gap in reading widened from 26 points in 2011 to 57 points in 2021, while in mathematics, it increased from three points to 29 points over a similar period. By upper primary, girls are estimated to be about a year ahead of boys in reading, with smaller but still significant gaps in mathematics.

The fact that men continue to outearn women by around 22% and remain significantly more likely to be employed does not make what is happening in classrooms less urgent. The same norms that discourage boys from developing empathy, connectedness and help-seeking reinforce the idea that care is the responsibility of women and girls. These same norms undermine boys’ educational outcomes and sustain the unequal division of care that contributes to the gender wage gap.

The stories boys live in the classroom and beyond

In many schools, the behaviours that signal engagement – sitting still, asking for help, showing effort, expressing curiosity – sit uneasily alongside expectations of masculinity to be tough and independent.

Boys are socialised from an early age to suppress vulnerability and limit emotional expression, reducing opportunities to develop the skills that underpin learning. In some peer cultures, visible engagement at school carries social risk, making disengagement feel safer than trying too hard.

Boys in a recent study conducted by The University of East Anglia, Equimundo and Unesco in Malawi reported that they often avoid reading because it is seen as “not for them”, distance themselves from language-heavy subjects, and resist help-seeking even when they are struggling.

Teachers, meanwhile, are navigating overcrowded classrooms and under-resourced systems. When boys act out, their behaviour is often treated as a discipline issue rather than a signal of disengagement – a pattern South African researchers Robert Morrell and Deevia Bhana have linked to gendered school cultures and norms of masculinity. In this way, schools can unintentionally reinforce, rather than interrupt, broader patterns of masculine socialisation and disengagement.

These dynamics do not begin or end in the classroom. For some boys, particularly in lower-income communities, pressures associated with work and adult responsibility emerge early. Where masculinity is strongly tied to earning and provision, leaving school can become understandable, even rational.

A way forward

Addressing boys’ disengagement requires both stronger education systems and direct engagement with the gender norms that shape how boys and girls experience them.

The Lifting Barriers project in Malawi demonstrates what this can look like in practice: a whole-school approach that creates space for boys to talk openly about identity and expectations, supports teachers to respond differently to behaviour and engages families in conversations about the value of education.

Improving foundational learning is critical, particularly in the early years. The 2024 Thrive by Five Index found significant gender gaps already evident before formal schooling begins – 48% of girls were on track for early learning, compared with just 37% of boys. But stronger foundations must be paired with greater attention to socio-emotional learning, classroom environments that support participation and help-seeking, and approaches that challenge narrow ideas of masculinity.

Supporting teachers to recognise behaviour as a signal of unmet emotional needs – not simply a discipline problem – is central to this.

Recognising boys’ disengagement should not be treated as a zero-sum issue. South Africa’s results in Pirls and Timss — the international assessments that benchmark reading and mathematics across countries — remain below the international “low” benchmark for all children.

The challenge is therefore not to redistribute attention between boys and girls, but to understand how gender shapes different experiences within a system that is not working as well as it should. Helping all learners thrive means moving beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and responding to the real experiences and needs of both boys and girls. DM

Dr Wessel van den Berg is senior advocacy officer at Equimundo, the Centre for Masculinities and Social Justice, Stellenbosch. Tania Beard is an associate partner and co-leads the gender practice at Dalberg, a mission-driven consulting firm, based in Johannesburg. Cody Ragonese is director of programmes at Equimundo, the Centre for Masculinities and Social Justice, in Washington, DC.