A recent think-tank study shows that female students at britainʼs top-two universities dont get as many first-class degrees as their male classmates (a difference of about 8 percentage points)
The Higher Education Policy Institute research points out a weird pattern: while women do better at most UK universities they fall behind at Oxford and Cambridge — where final grades depend mostly on end-of-year exams. The report suggests that pre-menstrual syndrome which affects women for roughly two-weeks monthly plays a big role in this difference
At Cambridge last year Famke Veenstra-Ashmore found that only 22.4% of women got top marks compared to 30.7% of men. The study shows several reasons for this gap:
- Old-style exam-focused testing
- Male students more likely to cram at terms end
- Health issues affecting women during exam periods
- Too many male teachers in some subjects
- Aggressive teaching methods that dont work for everyone
Professor Bhaskar Vira from Cambridge says: “Weʼre looking into why this happens; its not just one thing causing it“. Meanwhile Rose Stephenson points out that these schools have been slow to change — Cambridge didnt even give degrees to women until about 75 years ago
The report asks for big changes in how students get tested; suggesting that spreading out exams and adding more course-work could make things more fair. It also says the schools need to fix their old-fashioned teaching style that might be holding some students back