Boys play soccer, traditionally seen as a male pastime.Ding Genhou / Xinhua

Boys in crisis?

The academic rise of women is not only evident in higher education, but also at lower levels.

A number of primary schoolteachers canvassed for this article said girls generally outperform boys academically because they concentrate more in class and their performances are more stable.

Girls also occupy more places at elite high schools. At Shanghai High School, one of the city's highest-rated senior schools, girls account for 65 percent of the students. "It has been like this for 10 years," said Tang Shengchang, the school principal, in a 2014 interview with China Youth Daily.

Statistics published in 2015 by the educational examination authorities in the provinces of Shandong, Guangdong and Jiangsu showed that more girls than boys have been enrolled at elite senior high schools via entrance exams.

The growth of statistics such as these has prompted educational experts to call repeatedly for measures to bring boys up to standard.

However, Yang Xiong, director of the Juveniles Research Institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, disagreed with the assessments.

"The rising performance of girls doesn't mean a decline for boys. It just shows that the gap between the genders is narrowing as the country continues to develop," he said, adding that the current student assessment system favors girls, which may affect boys' self-confidence.

"Boys take more time to mature both physically and mentally, which may make it hard for them to compete with girls during school, especially in the early years. Typical Chinese tests, which concentrate on memory skills and accuracy, are the very things at which girls excel," Yang said.

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