Coeducational Schools Are Better Than Single Sex Schools (School Assignment)

I graduated from a coeducational elementary school, a coeducational junior high school, and a boys’ high school. And now I go to a coeducational university. Those two kinds of educational environments are totally different from each other. Making a comparison, coeducational schools are better environments for students than single sex schools because it is significant that men and women respect and cooperate with each other, even though single sex schools are superior in scholastic abilities or deviation values (hensachi).

It is important that men and women get used to understanding and cooperating with each other while they are young. There are two reasons. First, men and women should be equal, needless to say. The time ended when men are dominant over women in the society. Second, more and more women have come to work outside than when men were dominant in the society, and men and women work together more often. According to the Labor Force Survey conducted by Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the percentage of female employees grew from 32% in 1975 to 41.6% in 2006. Especially when it comes to young women, a national census conducted by the Ministry shows that the labor force participation rate of 25~29-year-old women climbed from 54% in 1985 to 75% in 2005.

Coeducational school students have much more opportunities to know about the opposite sex well. On the other hand, many of the single sex school students have difficulties becoming friends or getting into more serious relationship with the opposite sex students. Morotomi, a professor from Meiji university, states that only 9% of university students who graduated from boys’ schools have girlfriends, while 40% of those who graduated from coeducational schools have girlfriends. He also argues that graduates from single sex schools are likely to be less tolerant to faults of the opposite sex because they tend to idealize the opposite sex people.

Some people argue that single sex school students have better deviation values or that they are more likely to enter higher ranked universities than coeducational school students because single sex school students can concentrate more on their studies. It’s true that single sex school students tend to have better scholastic abilities on average. However, schools are not only a place where students study. They cannot be ready to get into the society only by means of study and exams because they have to understand, respect, communicate and cooperate with opposite sex people after graduating from schools.

In conclusion, coeducational school students are better educational places for students. Men and women should be accustomed to each other while they are young in order to prepare well to get into the society, and coeducational environments give students more opportunities to understand and respect the opposite sex than single sex environments do. In spite of the claim of people regard deviation values as important, knowing the opposite sex is more crucial for when they get into the society. [488]