I do not know if this reflects handicapping of boys or just a preference of boys and girls for certain types of jobs, Biologically, women are attached to the upbringing of their children. They seek jobs that can also help them in raising children. It is known that women teachers can get some more time looking after children compared to most other jobs. This is one reason that in India many girls and their parents prefer the teaching job. On the contrary, boys look for more challenging jobs. When I was young, I heard from many eligible bachelors that girls have less preference for marrying teachers and lecturers. I do not know whether that perception still stays. 

What I mean is because there are many ladies in the teaching profession, and less of men, our students achievement is affected: positively for the girls and negatively for the boys.  So here in my country, the ratio of female to male students, in pre university and university level, is now 3: 1; whereas years ago when parents couldn't afford education expenses, it was the reverse.  How can we help our boys?

http://www.eduicon.com/Feature/Details/196.html

Dear Miranda,

It's the human MIND that matters; not gender!  

I agree with Debi that biologically, women are attached to the upbringing of their children. They seek jobs that can also help them in raising children. 

In general, married women would prefer teaching job in schools because they can go home early so as to be able to take care of her family.

Dear Miranda, you know that I have diverse age and gender auditorium. All my students are perfect, but I adore male students.As a rule, girls can be not very honest in studying, they want to have excellent marks by all means. Male students are real knights if they love and believe their teacher. They have never betrayed me.They remember the kindness. It's so wonderful to meet my male leavers- they are full of love and sincerity.As for pedagogical staff, we have a lot of talented men. Surely, they are my friends. Our headmaster tries to encourage them by high salary. It's the main motivation for teachers-men.A man must provide for his family. Our women-teachers should have sponsors-husbands to be teachers and realize themselves in their favorite profession. In the long run, all teachers- men and women are obliged to have some jobs to survive and respect themselves.

Somo information to analyze the problem.

It may be interesting to note that researchers have found that there are differences between men and women in communication from the point of view of conversational level of professional interaction. From recent research on the subject, we learn that there are significant gender differences in verbal and non-verbal (Ivy & Backlund, 1994). The men seem to produce a greater number of linguistic units, speak faster, are interrupted more frequently (although women seem to be more likely to interrupt others with questions), tend to have less difficulty to break the silence, make a greater number of errors in pronunciation and tend to fill the pauses with sounds as long 'eee' or 'aaa'.

Some have interpreted these gender differences as a reflection of the male tendency to dominate conversations. Others claim that men are less likely linguistically and therefore many of these behaviors are compensating (Poynton, 1989). From some observations that even in the context of education girls and girls tend to provide more information about themselves than males. The same thing seems to happen also for teachers. The females seem to get even more time and attention on the part of teachers, more explanation and less purely descriptive answers than males. This could also just be the direct consequence of the fact that females require more information than males. Speaking of non-verbal communication, females seem to have more skills in decoding non-verbal signs, in assessing the accuracy, in the recognition of faces and expressing emotions through body language. The girls smile and look most of the males and tend to use the smile as a mechanism to manage social tensions.

Many people — especially girls — are still excluded from education, and many more are enrolled in school but learning too little to prepare them for 21st-century job markets. In some countries, access to the secondary and higher education that helps create a skilled and knowledgeable labor force continues to be limited; even where access is not a problem, the quality of the education provided is often low. " The most worrying aspect of the crisis in education is education's inability to provide the requirements for the development of Arab societies,"

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2003/EmpoweringWomenDevelopingSocietyFemaleEducationintheMiddleEastandNorthAfrica.aspx

In patriarchal social set up, it is often the husband's location that determines  where the family will reside. From a young stage at school , girls and boys receive clues and messages that emphasize rather than challenge the prevailing gendered stratification. Much in love with their teaching profession, most teachers believe that their being women has helped them to be more compassionate, accommodating and approachable to their students. When it comes to handling primary school children , they relate to them without hesitation. Communication with middle and high school students also becomes easy for women teachers as they share their anxieties well with the mother figure in a female teacher. Some respondents believed that women teachers are unable to deal with senior class boys. Another observation was that there is a difference in the level of commitment of school and college teachers as the teachers at school level usually take up  teaching to spend time in something constructive only when their husbands are on postings; it is just not 100% effort.

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/pathak_singh_vow3dpaper.pdf

Friends, thanks for your views.  Recently, I became concerned about this matter.  It's not just about more women than men being educators!  Not so much about being more natural for a woman to seek such a job!  It's whether it has a bad effect on academic performance of our students.  

At the last mid semester exam, our 18 year old girls did better than our boys.  Thanks Dr Shamsi, you caught the point that's troubling me: 'I don’t think boys are under disadvantages position when they study under more number of female teachers. Female teachers showed motherly affection towards their student irrespective of gender.'

@Umachandran, do you have stats for India, like what Prof Kamal has posted on Jordan?

India Has a Shortage of Female Teachers Lack of female teachers is another potential barrier to girls’ education. Girls are more likely to attend school and have higher academic achievement if they have female teachers. This is particularly

true in highly gender-segregated societies such as India . Currently, women account for only 29 percent of teachers at the primary level. The proportion of teachers who are female is even lower at the university level, 22 percent of instructors. These proportions reflect the historic paucity of women with the educational qualifications to be teachers. However, the proportions are likely to change in the future as women

currently account for nearly half of those being trained as teachers. Again there are differences among the states; the states with the highest literacy rates are also the states with the highest proportion of female teachers

https://www.census.gov/population/international/files/wid-9801.pdf

Socio Economic Statistics India 2011

http://mospi.nic.in/mospi_new/upload/sel_socio_eco_stats_ind_2001_28oct11.pdf

Friends, we have this important fact about India: 'the states with the highest literacy rates are also the states with the highest proportion of female teachers'.  This is wonderful!  (Educate the girls to educate the boys!)

But we have bias against women too, and sons have advantage to receive education, rather than daughters.  Besides that, there are other barriers and bias against women; just read the link!

https://www.census.gov/population/international/files/wid-9801.pdf

In our country, the girls outnumbered the guys in universities since 1988 & until now due to the "volatile" hard circumstances in which our homeland passed through. This has meant that girls have gained more qualifications for teaching, for instance. Before they graduate from the university, I used to tell the girls to try to have stronger characters because they may find themselves in difficult careers such as teaching chemistry in an all-male secondary school. 

Dear @Miranda, here is the situation in my country! "...Gender disparities are also evident in the number of women appointed as lecturers and professors in different departments. Women hold 64% of appointed lectureships in philology departments, and roughly 45% in law departments. However, they hold only 9% in electrical and

mechanical engineering departments, where only 6% of all teaching staff is women. Women are equally rare in high administrative positions in Serbian universities. Only six provosts at Serbian universities have been female (in Belgrade and Novi Sad). There has never been a woman in charge of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and only 6% of its members are women.

This is despite the fact that at the University of Belgrade women earned 31.6% of doctoral degrees and 34% of all master’s degrees. The picture is similar in scientific research institutes.

Overall, roughly half of female researchers (49%) hold doctoral degrees. For men, the same is true: 51% of male researchers hold a Ph.D. However, out of 162 scientific research institutes, only 22 are headed by women"! This is really deep analysis!

Dear Prof Ljubomir, thanks, it's worth waiting for the analysis.  it's more than raw info!  I also see that the proportion of PhD's is roughly equal.  Fine, Serbian boys have no handicap as compared to girls!

Dear friends, I'm sure, male teachers are the most productive teachers. If a man's desire is to be a teacher, he will be more productive than a female colleague. All children love and believe him,, and they feel themselves as heroes with male teachers.Nowadays I have a class under male ruling, they are Maths and Physics orientation. You see, they are adequate and humanistic persons- intelligent and polite. Their "father" is  god in Maths, hat's why they believe him, adore him, and will be with him after leaving. And what is more, they respect other teachers and try to be the best in other subjects.I love male teachers, they are honest, interesting, noble. They are out of rumors and enviousness They are real friends, it's very interesting to communicate with them. 

Dear friends, this is the current situation in US graduate classes, not just in schools.  Prof Ljubomir, it's not like in Serbia:

Psychology, once a man's profession, now attracts mostly women. Data from the 1986 APA report, "The Changing Face of American Psychology," and the National Science Foundation show that the percentage of psychology PhDs awarded to men has fallen from nearly 70 percent in 1975 to less than 30 percent in 2008. (The data do not include PsyD degrees.)

The shift is reflected in the work force as well. Data from APA's Center for Workforce Studies show that women make up 76 percent of new psychology doctorates, 74 percent of early career psychologists and 53 percent of the psychology work force.  The phenomenon is not unique to psychology. Other fields such as law and education have seen an influx of women as well.

http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/01/cover-men.aspx

Dear Irina, this semester we have 2 men in our college, who just got back from Imperial college UK.  They are biology teachers, Cornelius and Hamidi.  I have written up a paper on self directed learning, put their names because I used their students in the research, and sent to a journal.  But the lady whose job is to check our papers wasn't happy with my director for signing his approval.  She said: "why must I ask her to insert Figure 1 here, and Table 1 there"?  

So our 2 male friends who are truly Generation Y people got angry on my behalf and said, "did that lady really get a PhD?"  Actually I was just following the formatting rules of the journal to send Tables and Figures as separate files, but to show on the document where they should be inserted!

Thanks dear Dr Nizar: 'This has meant that girls have gained more qualifications for teaching, for instance. Before they graduate from the university, I used to tell the girls to try to have stronger characters because they may find themselves in difficult careers such as teaching chemistry in an all-male secondary school.'

In my first school there were a lot of discipline problems, few of the boys were interested in studying at all.  But I wasn't there too long.  I moved to another school that was co-ed.  And the discipline teachers were great.  Parents actually asked them please cane their children to put some sense into their heads!  But now, caning is not allowed anymore.

On Women's Day, it's right to think of the males too. Here, the boys don't seem to perform so well as the girls, but the boys who discipline themselves to study are at the top!  (Are your boys (your sons) that difficult to discipline?) How is this situation in your college or university? Who really makes it to the Dean's list? And who succeeds? Do all males and females succeed academically, and in their careers, and become exemplary professionals or citizens?

Dear @Miranda, sorry, but I do not congratulate March 8th! As You know, I do have 3 women in my home! We should celebrate our women every day! :)

The effects of problem-based learning about modern concepts of education and classroom discipline models in education of students of the Teachers’ Training Faculty is fine research paper for your research question!

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?id=0579-64311202299T&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1#.VPwjUHzF9As

Between my previous contribution & this one, a semester ended and we are in the middle of another semester. The results of girls in the first semester were generally better than those of the guys (except for the medical students) & I expect the same outcome to be at the end of this semester. I think that the reason is obvious: the girls are more dedicated in studying & the guys have more distractions and interests which make them neglect the main aim behind their presence in the university. 

Dear @Barbara, thanks for your post.  It's the same in my country; life sciences and education faculties are run over by ladies.  Concerning engineering education:

'In Malaysia, Muslim women fill many universities as educators. They themselves are professionals and involve in educating technocrats and professionals. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia is one of the engineering universities in Malaysia with the main aims to educating engineers. This university has a blend of engineering educators from both genders. Although engineering is the field dominated by man, the current trend shows significant increase in women engineering educators as well as the graduates. 30% of the engineering educators in UTM are represented by Muslim women.'

http://eprints.utm.my/3125/1/EDUCATING_ENGINEERS.pdf

Dear @Ljubomir, thanks for the link. I will read it well.  Regards to dear Vesna, Nevena and Jana.  Congrats to Vesna for her motherly wisdom, in not encouraging Nevena and Jana to be on RG :)

But I have restricted the time for Q and A.  Suggest to Vesna that Nevena and Jana must do the same if they are on RG :)

Dear Dr Nizar, thanks for your wise words.  I agree that (apart from the exceptional boys), most males are very concerned about rugby, soccer, girl friends and do not study sufficiently.  They have lost their curiosity and intrinsic motivation.  But recently, some Malay girls here performed very badly.  When my deputy director interviewed them, they admitted that the teachers did their best, but they failed because they did part time business in selling head dresses and scarves!  Here, the girls didn't even know the real reason to attend college.  (In class, I saw several girls wearing the same head dress with a chrysanthemum flower motif, and I had suspected they had bought from the same supplier.)

Dear Miranda,

Dear All,

The cause of this phenomenon is the very low salary of teachers in many countries. If the number of female employees increases means that people are badly paid and respected.

Yes, we observed in recent years women have risen to the top of the corporate world.

More noteworthy has been the dominance of women in higher education. After centuries of male dominance, worldwide women now outnumber men in both university attendance and graduation. In some universities the M: F ratio is 1:3. Also the girl schools enrollment ratios exceed those of boys schools according to local statistics.

Dear Miranda,

I can not say in numbers, but by perception, in Brazil, women are the majority as teachers in alphabetisation and children courses in general.

In universities are fewer in courses related to human and biological and courses aimed at technology and exact sciences are more or less in the order of 1: 7 to 1:10.

There is still much space to fill!

best wishes,

Vanessa

Dear Miranda,

Hope you are doing well in your field. Thanks for sharing the question. Though you have raised an important question in front of us, let hope that no gender bias can operate in this advanced world. Men and Women should act in a co-ordinate manner in order to excel in different fields.

Do not mind. This is my personal view. I wish to look all persons as human first rather  than looking at their backgrounds, gender, status etc.

Regards,

Shankhadeep

It has to be always to create a very just working structure of society where every able citizen performs to his/her best of ability and live to the fullest in jobs, equal payments, social values. It has to be our utmost effort not to reverse the roles of boys and girls but instead to amend the imbalances created between genders due to social and cultural reasons. An imbalance with interchanged groups will keep the problem unsolved.   

In the UK, girls outperform boys at schools and universities but they are less successful in careers.

Thats the same in Germany. But now they seem to start. We had a new idea and decision in the german parliament for a 30% rate of women  in the supervisory boards in top industry just now.

Dear @Miranda, regarding gender in teaching profession in Serbia, there are some cases where man are predominant! Women in academic profession and male domination is a fine case study about! It is about exceptions! " The research shows that personal perspectives and testimonies of women can contribute to a deeper understanding of their disadvantage in academia, while at the same time contributing to the sociology of the 'individual' and the 'qualitative' by expanding the database on gender issues."

http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/Article.aspx?id=0038-03181002181T#.VP1kBXzF9As

Women everywhere get little financial or social recognition for working more, resting less, and doing a greater variety of work than men. Their work is often statistically invisible: it is estimated that the official enumerators count only about two-thirds of women's work. In poor and rich countries alike it is women-with a few exceptions-who do the subsistence work: feeding, clothing, tending and tilling-in short, managing their families' survival. And very few women see themselves as 'just housewives'; in Tamil Nadu, India, for example, poor women see their role as 'earning for and supporting the family'. 

http://www.utc.edu/faculty/sarla-murgai/women-in-the-world.php

Thanks for the info that you have provided.  Being sensible and responsible citizens and researchers we know that it's never a good sign to have an imbalance in these matters.  But it look like we are experiencing the same in many countries as Andras, Vanessa, Gamal, Hanno, Ouyang and others have mentioned.

The male students who are successful in studies do tend to be more successful than females in their careers as Ouyang said.  It could be due to ladies having more home commitments and spending more time and energy in the home.  But I believe that many men are now supportive of women folk.

@Andras, here the teachers are equally paid, whether they are men or women.  In my fathers's time, men received a slightly higher salary, but it's the same now.

@Hanno, it's good that in Germany, you have come up with the 30%.  It's quite good, even if it's not 50%.  So it shows that some have realized that a big disparity in gender is not good for anyone.

Dear Cecilia and all, I hope that children will have the benefit of having male and female teachers.  (I find that in Sunday school, our children are very happy when men are teaching them.  Little children seem to benefit from having a father figure.  I wonder if there's research showing this.)

Dear Ljubomir, thanks for the link.  It says for teaching in  Serbian criminal police academy: 'The results indicate that women who are part of a masculine climate in their academic teaching profession and in their personal life, are arguably in a subordinate position compared to men, and accept their position as quite natural. '  So in their careers, men are more successful, just as Ouyang has mentioned concerning UK.

Thanks Umachandran for this link.  A lot of info:

'For women, there are no developed countries. Although some places are clearly better for them to live in than others, it is not always true that the relatively rich countries of the world provide better circumstances for them as women than do poorer countries.

While many countries provide formally for sexual equality in law, very few governments have legislated to protect specific job and marriage rights; and such law as exists is nullified or blunted in its effect by social and administrative practice. Nowhere do women have full equal rights with men.

Yet women are biologically stronger, live longer than men, and naturally outnumber them. Where they do not, it is only because of the effects of war, or because they have been forced to migrate in search of work, or because they have suffered severe and systematic discrimination.'

Dear Cecilia, Vanessa and dear men, would you agree that women must be thankful that despite their hard lot, they are strong and organized to fulfill their responsibilities?  And I do notice that women have a more tender conscience than many men, but I'm not accusing anyone of hardness of heart here :)

@Umachandran and all, it's a pity that Palani Shanmugan isn't active on QA anymore, disappointed about several matters concerning QA of RG.

Dear Miranda,

1) Generally, men are better paid. This is – unfortunately – a world tendency.

2) Teachers are badly paid thus men do not prefer to be teachers except to be bosses of teachers.

3) Of course, this is only one compound of reasons of the high number of female teachers.

Dear Miranda,

My second daughter is English teacher at an elementary school. She complains always about her woman colleagues. As she talked a lot about them, it is horrible to bear their chatters. She said male colleagues generally can be easier tolerated.

Thanks dear Andras for your answers.  You are right that there are many more women than men in teaching.  I'm just concerned that this may negatively affect the academic performance of male students.  Here, there are also more female heads of schools than men in that role.  In my previous school, we had a female head for many years.  She worked very hard, and was good for the school.  When she opted to retire early, she was replaced by a man.  He was more sociable, and was very popular with the Chinese (Mandarin) speaking community.  The school began to produce excellent results.

I also observe that more women teachers tend to gossip than men.  At times they even say things that aren't true to obtain the favor of bosses, hoping for a promotion.  I avoid them, focus on my students, my teaching and research.  These things absorb all my time, and so I manage to keep away from negative elements!  (Not because I'm strong...)

Delhi, Kerala and Tamil Nadu are India’s best-ranked States in terms of gender-related education indicators, new data from the Ministry of Human Resource Development and UNICEF, shows.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/delhi-kerala-tamil-nadu-top-in-girls-education/article6975865.ece

Thanks for this info @Umachandran.  What I know from RG is that Delhi is the capital where Debi Saini lives, and Lijo is from Kerala and Shanmugan (Palani) is from Tamil Nadu.  Shanmugam told me about the free food program to school children.  I am happy indeed that Tamil Nadu is reaping some good things from wise and generous actions that the state has undertaken.

From the link above, '... the atlas uses data earlier collected by other government agencies, it also creates a new composite index using 21 indicators to do with girls’ education, along four axes — access, infrastructure, teachers and outcomes. Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi and Punjab are in the top 25% of the index’s range for elementary education, and the two Southern states and Delhi make the top quarter of the index for secondary education as well.'

So girls are doing well in these 3 states, probably better than boys.  But as an educator, I am concerned for everyone of my students to do well, in school and in their careers!  There is no benefit for the society if any part of it isn't performing optimally.

Thanks for your posts, my friends.  Thanks for your time.  Being on Q and A actually reduces the time for our own research writing, but we all benefit from Q and A.  The experiences on Q and A helps me to evaluate, to review and to synthesize my own readings!

I guess that the educators have to exert an influence on those in power to make a difference in their own society so that all human resources and talents are really appreciated and well used for the improvement of their own community/ country.

Today,in all areas of work, men and women are equal and the opportunity is for those who can deliver. Globalization has opened up new avenues of employment and the work timings are round the clock, unlike earlier days where the work activities where concerned for the day light. Adding to improvement is the facility and infrastructural improvements which has facilitated travel and reach to workplaces with ease, compared with earlier times.

However, none can deny that competition has increased, and Darwin's theory is put to test, these days.

Dear @Miranda, there are many highly educated people among refugees and immigrants from Syria and other countries. This is about not only teaching profession.

Story from Great Britain follows!

http://www.managers.org.uk/insights/news/2015/october/workplace-discrimination-women-and-refugees-most-seriously-disadvantaged