By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
A coed high school's recent move to return to its original form as an all-male school is fueling debates over the efficiency of coed education in public schools.
In a joint petition along with teachers, the parent representative group and alumni, Dukwon High School in the southeastern city of Daegu has asked the education authority to allow it to return to being an all-boys school. It is the first time a public school has filed such a petition with the authority in the region.
Lee Sung-han, 54, principal of the school, believes that the coed school is less efficient than a single-gender one in the current educational environment. The originally all-male school, turned coed about six years ago.
``After six years of coed education, negative reactions from teachers, parents and students were overwhelming,'' said Lee. ``We have to separate classes on some subjects or we have to apply the same evaluation methods for both boys and girls for exams of physical education, which has not been so successful.''
The request can be seen as a retrogressive move since the government has long made efforts to set up more coed schools and encourage single-sex schools to reopen as coed. But other mixed-sex schools are expected to follow a similar move, depending on the government's decision in this case.
The principal also said that the application also reflects the difficulty attracting top male students from middle schools. Male students wouldn't want to compete with girls.
``Boys usually have lower school grades in the competition with girls. Consequently, talented male middle school graduates avoid entering our school and choose to go to a nearby all-boys school,'' Lee said.
Dukwon High School started out as all-male before it moved to its current location in 2003. The education authorities allowed the transfer on the condition that it would reopen as a coed school. Such policies of government, in Daegu alone, have seen the rate of coed schools increase to 54 percent from 30 percent in 2000.
The request is not being well received by the authorities. ``You don't need to unnecessarily build two schools for boys and girls, respectively in a region with a small population,'' said an official from the Daegu Metropolitan Office of Education. ``It's also not right to separate boys and girls. It could be discriminative.''
He also said there will likely be a series of similar requests made by other coed high schools if they accept the request from the high school, implying that many schools are not satisfied with the coed system.
Segregated Classes
Many feminists and experts have long argued the segregation of the sexes results in the creation of unnecessary stereotypes for different sexes.
However, many parents prefer single-gender classes even at coed schools. Some male students at the schools tend to transfer to all-boys schools to avoid competition with girls.
``Nearly 90 percent of students moving to other schools were boys last year,'' said a teacher at a coed high school in Gangnam. ``When it comes to the matter of teaching, I think it's more comfortable and efficient with single-gender classes. For example, it's not easy to discipline girls in front of boy classmates.''
The issue of single-sex classes has also been drawing keen attention in the United States as more schools have been trying to separate classes for the different sexes for better academic achievement.
It's uncertain whether boys and girls do learn better separately. Although some researchers have linked efficiency in academic achievement to all-boy or all-girl classes, many educational experts still doubt the efficacy of same-sex classes.
``It's not right to separate boys and girls by gender as now their roles are not strictly divided,'' professor Kim Ji-hyeon from Hongik University said, who has long studied the gender issue at schools. ``Boys could have disadvantages in terms of grades (in coed classes), but in the longer term, they could have much more disadvantages in an all-boys class in terms of emotional aspects.''
Washington Post recently reported that more public schools in the U.S. have introduced single-sex classes, which have long been a hallmark of private schools. It reported by next fall, about 500 public schools nationwide will offer single-sex classes.
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