10:11 AM ET 01/05/98

UK girls outsmart boys as anti-school culture rises

         
            By Jill Serjeant
            LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said Monday a prevailing culture
of booze, girl-chasing and bragging was leaving boys trailing
way behind girls at school.
            Official school exam figures showed a growing gender gap
that sees girls outperforming boys in Britain at every stage in
education.
            The poor performance of boys cuts across social class and
bodes ill for a future in which boys increasingly leave school
ill-qualified for a life where men no longer automatically rule
the roost with the assurance of better jobs and pay.
            ``We must challenge the laddish anti-learning culture which
has been allowed to develop over 20 years,'' junior education
minister Stephen Byers told an academic conference.
            ``We should not simply accept with a shrug of the shoulders
that boys will be boys,'' he said.
            Girls are doing dramatically better than boys in national
school tests in all subjects at the ages of seven, 11 and 14 and
outscoring boys by up to 15 percent in exams taken at the age of
16, according to official figures.
            Byers said 28,500 boys left school each year with no
qualifications at all, compared to 21,500 girls. Boys account
for up to 83 percent of expulsions and are more likely to play
truant and commit crimes.
            Prime Minister Tony Blair's new Labor government, keen to
improve education standards for all, is considering attracting
more men to the female-dominated teaching profession in a bid to
provide boys with better learning role models.
            They believe the identity crisis that has afflicted men over
the past 20 years as traditional male jobs disappear and women
grow in confidence and earning power is causing boys as young as
six or seven to drop out of the school system rather than
compete.
            ``Girls are reading, studying and doing their homework. Boys
are not,'' said Education Secretary David Blunkett.
            ``Being engaged in male activities might have a knock-on
effect as they grow older in terms of their own confidence and
self-esteem. We have gone through a period when men have lost
confidence in themselves,'' he said.
            Various research has shown that a typical 14-year-old boy
can concentrate for about five minutes compared with 15 minutes
for a girl of the same age. Parents are more likely to read to
their daughters than their sons and to give them more books.
            ``... if we are to create a modern Britain and a decent
society then the present level of underachievement by boys will
need to be tackled as a matter of urgency,'' said Byers.
        
 ^REUTERS@

11:47 AM ET 02/09/98

Mowlam plans arts spectaculars for N.Ireland

         
            BELFAST (Reuters) - Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Mo
Mowlam said Monday she planned to harness a desire for peace in
the troubled province by laying on a series of high-profile arts
spectaculars.
            The Belfast ``News Letter'' said Luciano Pavarotti, Garth
Brooks, Elton John and Van Morrison were being considered for
open-air concerts on rolling parkland at Stormont, just outside
the city, in May or June.
            ``What I want to do is see if we can get some events in
Northern Ireland, really to use the goodwill that exists. In
that sense I am sure there will be some major events,'' Mowlam
told reporters.
            ``Where they are and their nature has yet to be confirmed
but I have no doubt that there is a willingness out there in the
arts world to do all they can.''
            Last year thousands of young people from the province's
rival pro-British Protestant and republican Catholic communities
forgot their differences and turned up for a rare open-air
concert by rock band U2.
            Mowlam has let it be known that she wants greater use made
of the extensive grounds that house the region's elegant but
mothballed parliament buildings at Stormont, which is the seat
of British power in the province.
            Last summer she gave permission for parliament buildings to
be used as a movie backdrop, as part of a new strategy aimed at
promoting the province as a location for the film industry.
 ^REUTERS@

11:46 AM ET 02/05/98

'Free the Pooh Five' campaign gains momentum

         
            By Paul Majendie
            LONDON (Reuters) - A campaign to bring Winnie the Pooh home
from New York gained momentum Thursday, and one commentator even
wondered if President Bill Clinton's special relationship with
Prime Minister Tony Blair might suffer.
            The plight of Pooh and friends won front-page coverage in
the New York Times. Two of Pooh's companions, Tigger and Kanga,
penned an editorial in the London Times. British Culture
Minister Chris Smith promised to consider the case.
            ``The special relationship between Britain and the United
States was on a knife edge as a diplomatic squabble broke out
over the future of five threadbare animals,'' the normally
austere Financial Times reported.
            As Blair met Clinton during an official visit to Washington,
British parliamentarian Gwyneth Dunwoody, a member of Blair's
Labor Party, launched a campaign in Britain's House of Commons
(lower house) to repatriate the ``Pooh Five.''
            The five are Pooh himself, Tigger, Kanga, Eeyore and Piglet,
the original toys on which A.A. Milne based his famous
Christopher Robin stories.
            The five stuffed animals have spent the last 11 years in a
glass case at the New York Public Library, and the library was
bombarded with telephone calls Wednesday after Dunwoody's
repatriation campaign was launched.
            The toys were donated to the library by E.P. Dutton, the
company which published the original Winnie the Pooh book in the
United States in 1926.
            Dunwoody, deluged with press queries Thursday about her Pooh
plea, said: ``Just like the Greeks want their Elgin Marbles back
(from the British Museum in London), we want our Winnie the
Pooh. Ah, the indignity of it all.''
            The parliamentarian complained in a formal House of Commons
question to Culture Minister Smith.
            She said: ``They are part of our heritage and they want to
come home. They look very unhappy indeed. I am not surprised
considering they have been incarcerated in a glass case in a
foreign country for 70 years.''
            But New York library spokeswoman Nancy Donner firmly
rebutted any accusations of animal cruelty to the ``Five'' in
their climate-controlled glass case.
            ``By all reports, the Pooh Five haven't been this
comfortable since their days in the 100 Acre Wood,'' she said.
            The toy animals took the unusual step of talking to the
editorial page of the London Times, mouthpiece of the British
Establishment, to express their views.
            Piglet wasn't so sure about repatriation, telling the paper
``Back in England we were just little animals entirely
surrounded by nannies and middle-class attitudes. In New York we
have grown up.''
            Tigger was equally dubious: ``New York is more fun and
bouncing,'' he wrote.
            But the wheels of government ground slowly.
            Asked by Reuters what he planned to do about Dunwoody's
plea, Culture Minister Smith said: ``I must confess it is not
something I have given detailed consideration to at this stage.
            ``I haven't received her formal question, but when I have, I
will be considering it carefully and responding.''
        
 ^REUTERS@ 

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