Boys and school...

I read an interesting article that says more girls than boys are going to university and the gap is only getting bigger: "For more than a decade, universities have been puzzling over where the boys are as the ratio of female to male students keeps climbing. About 56% of Canadian undergraduates in 2006 were women, according to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, a significant change from the early 1970s, when more than two-thirds of university graduates in their mid-twenties were men." The article suggests that Youth in Transition found that about 32% of high school boys had an average of more than 80% compared to more than 46% of girls. On average, the girls studied 6.4 hours a week, while the boys studied 4.7 hours. About 21% of the boys reported skipping classes at least once a week, compared with 15% of girls."

Any thoughts on why this is? What is our responsibility as teachers, to ensure that boys and girls have equal access to university when research suggests it is an effort issue?