Malta has had co-ed senior schools for around 25 years
Times of Malta reported yesterday on the world-shattering news of limited co-education in some state schools, with a description of girls playing with boys in the playground as though it was something amazing:
Four months ago, St Claire’s College became the first school on the island to introduce mixed students in Form 1 – as the government launched a pilot project to gauge the introduction of co-education across the board.
Wrong by more than two decades: all fee-paying independent schools (San Anton, San Andrea, St Michael’s, St Martin’s) with the exception of St Edward’s College have been co-educational from day one. San Anton School is the oldest of these and opened its doors 27 years ago. The fact that it was committed to co-education from the age of four to 16 was the sole reason I enrolled my sons there in 1988.
It was a great leap of faith because the school was brand new and had no track record to speak of. It didn’t even have a school building, but was using a large house near San Anton Palace, hence the name. But the way I figured it out, they would be better off at a mixed-gender school with poor teaching than at a boys-only school with good teaching.
There are few scenarios as freakish as segregating 400 children or teenagers of the same gender in the same building, separating them from the other gender and underscoring the sense of separation and difference that has proved deleterious for this society.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140118/local/-No-need-to-worry-about-co-education-.503039#.Uts5XrA1gdU
The British Empire was built on the mono-gender playing fields of Eton.
What more wondrous events might have occurred had girls been admitted in those days?
Labour also pushed co-education in the 1980s. My son remembers hiding under a bed with girl pupils of the same age when the Keystone Police came knocking on doors searching for underground classes that took place in people’s homes when KMB’s Labour government closed down the church schools.
In my opinion, the primary reason for the success of co-ed in the private, fee-paying schools is that the PARENTS are highly motivated to ensure that their offspring get a good, all-round education (thereby getting value for money).
Can the same be said for government and/or Church schools?
Spot on.
Hear Hear, it is what I keep on stating to others who refuse to send their sons to coed. My concern for the recent news is that they got it all wrong. You do not integrate boys and girls at their age, it has to start from age 3 and has to be continuous.