A cultural transformation: Pakistani girls outperforming boys in education

In this paper, we highlight and present a nuanced picture of girls’ outperformance and boys’ underperformance in education in the urban centres of Pakistan. This is a very interesting and remarkable gender reverse trend in education performance in the dominated socio-cultural context of Pakistan. The paper takes into account the annual results of two examination boards: a) Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Peshawar and b) Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Faisalabad, Pakistan. Employing content analysis techniques, we have examined young boys’ and girls’ educational performance in secondary school certificate (SSC) and higher secondary schools certificate (HSSC) examinations from 2002 to 2016. The paper takes into account the first three positions as an indicator of outperformance. The paper simply highlights the trend of structure transformation and does not inquire about reasons for boys’ underperformance and girls’ outperformance. The study findings suggest that girls are outperforming boys in the urban centres of Pakistan.