It is better to educate boys and girls in separate schools

IELTS Writing Task 2 with sample answer.

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Some people think that it is better to educate boys and girls in separate schools. Others, however, believe that boys and girls benefit more from attending mixed schools.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion

Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

You should write at least 250 words.


Model Answer:

It is a growing trend in many schools separating boys and girls in the classroom. The question of whether or not the pupils should be segregated by in the classroom turns into a very controversial issue. Many individuals contend that single-sex education is more advantageous, while others oppose to the notion. The truth is that there are as many numbers of drawbacks of this discrimination as there are the numbers of benefits.

To begin with, co-education serves students’ purpose more than keeping them in separate classes. It is true in some cases that educatees get better results in single-sex classes. But the prime focus should be on the overall development of a student. It is about enhancing one’s personality by co-education. In the real world one does not compete only with candidates of his own sex but everybody. Hence, they ought to be kept in the same class so that they are to work on their skills to match up to the level of the other sex. In this way, they would simultaneously excel in all the fields. In addition, they would be lot more social and understand the people irrespective of their gender.

Some people, however, plead for separate classrooms due to boys are intimidated by girls. They claim that if you have a very bright, very driven, much focused, very articulated lady, which a lot of girls are, that intimidates a boy in the classroom, particularly boys of average ability. As a result, boys do not put their hand up to answer questions or sometimes they indulge in immature behavior to avoid being shown up. Boys are falling behind as girls are doing better. Boys fear failure just like girls do. It is worthy to mention it here that a new study by the three university of Pennsylvania researchers looked at single-sex education in Seoul, Korea. In Seoul, until 2009, students were randomly assigned to single-sex education and co-education. After controlling for other variables such as teacher quality, student-teacher ratio, and the proportion of students receiving lunch support, the study found significant advantages in single-sex education. The students earned higher scores on their college entrance exams and were more likely to attend four-year colleges.

In conclusion, although, there are some advantages with shared schools between boys and girls, separate schools are most beneficial for both students and school authorities. The reason is that boys and girls brains do function in different ways, so they learn very differently. Girls are more passive learners; they are usually good visual and auditory learners and do well with lots of class discussions and diagrams. In contrast, boys are more kinetic learners. So, single-sex class would mean we could cater for different learning styles.