Should girls choose single sex school or all gender school
In many countries today, single sex schools and mixed schools co-exist for traditional and religious reasons. With the concern from parents regarding negative news about the mixed classes, people tend to believe it is beneficial for students’ academic achievement to participate in single-sex schools, especially for younger females. However, in fact, girls can experience both advantages and drawbacks from all girl schools. To begin with, the concentration of girls’ natural talents and own characteristics are stronger in girl only classes. In the all-girl schools, particular instructions will be given according to their sexual characteristics and more opportunities will be available for class participation. According to the result of a pilot program which had segregated the two sexes, girls learned more knowledge of technical and science subjects in all girl classes (The Sydney Morning Herald Editorial, 1993). Furthermore, the distraction and dangers derived from the mixture of boys and girls exert negative influences on female students. In class, boy can be over distracting for girls (Dargaville, 1993). The noise from boy’s playing electronic games and other activities can remove female students’ attention in class. What is more, sexual harassment is paramountly detrimental for females at an early age, psychologically and physically. As the National Action Plan for the Education of Girls (1993) mentioned, a characteristic of most mixed schools is the sexual harassment that girls are subjected to by boys and at times teachers. On the other hand, there are a number of reasons why being educated in all girl’ school does not benefit female students. In reality, men and women live and work together. Children are better prepared for adult life by mixed schools, as noted by West and Hunter (1993). Secondly, the higher academic achievement of young female students is not the automatic product of all girls’ school (The Sydney Morning Herald, 1993). The academic result