Co-education facts for kids
Co-educational means education for boys and girls together. The practice has been different in different countries, and at different times. Most primary schools have been co-educational for a long time.
However, before the mid-19th century, girls were often educated at home, or were not educated at all. On this point, there were great differences in different parts of the world. In England and Wales, universal primary education was set up by the Elementary Education Act of 1870, and attendance from the ages of 5 to 10 was compulsory. This was extended in another Act of 1880. Since then. almost all primary education in the United Kingdom has been co-educational, and so it is in many other countries.
The world's oldest co-educational day and boarding school is Dollar Academy, a junior and senior school for males and females from ages 5 to 18 in Scotland, United Kingdom. From its opening in 1818 the school admitted both boys and girls of the parish of Dollar and the surrounding area. The school continues in existence to the present day with around 1,250 pupils.
The first co-educational college to be founded was Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Oberlin, Ohio. It opened on December 3, 1833, with 44 students, including 29 men and 15 women. Fully equal status for women did not arrive until 1837, and the first three women to graduate with bachelor's degrees did so in 1840.
For years, a question many educators, parents, and researchers have been asking is whether or not it is academically beneficial to teach boys and girls together or separately at school. Some argue that coeducation has primarily social benefits, allowing males and females of all ages to become more prepared for real-world situations.
Images for kids
-
Co-Education by Charles Allan Winter, c. 1915
-
Oberlin College, the oldest extant mixed-sex institute of higher education in the United States
See also
In Spanish: Coeducación para niños
