"Our current pedagogy requires students to sit still, take notes and recite a lot of information," Kang said. He believes this is psychologically against boys since these requirements play to their weaknesses.

 "What we are teaching and how we evaluate students deprive boys of any opportunity to exhibit their strengths, which is the fundamental reason that there are more problematic students among boys," said Sun, co-author of Rescue the Boys.

 Huang, who went to the United States for postgraduate studies after obtaining a bachelor's degree at a Chinese university, said he envied American middle school students who can select teachers and courses they like, whereas elective courses are unheard of to most Chinese middle school students.

 "I wish that back in middle school I was given more choices and an opportunity to prove myself with things I was good at and interested in," Huang said.

Single-sex classes

Tu Yanguo, a professor of pedagogical science at Central China Normal University in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, said that teachers should be trained in diverse, gender-specific learning styles. He also suggested that education authorities should introduce incentives to encourage more men to become kindergarten and primary school teachers.

Yue Long, a professor of pedagogical science at Shanghai Normal University, had studied the "boys crisis" for a long time. He told magazine Xinmin Weekly that educators should see their students as boys and girls and use differentiated teaching methods.

In March, Shanghai No.8 Middle School announced an all-boys program for three-year high school education. The curriculum for this program will include courses designed to address the specific educational needs of boys, such as outdoor survival, boxing and repairing electric appliances. The program, which plans to recruit 60 students and commence in 2013, received 200 applications shortly after it was advertised at the middle school's website.

Originally established as an all-girls school in 1861, the school had long since become co-educational. As early as 10 years ago, it began experimenting with single-sex classes. New students were randomly divided into one girls-only class, one boys-only class and two co-ed classes. Students from the two single-sex classes posted significantly higher test scores, and parents of graduates from the boys-only classes said that their children had become more creative, respectful and courageous.

Shanghai Datong High School also has plans to expand its single-sex programs. Lu Shengqi, the school's principal, said that the school would offer boxing, Chinese chess and electro-acoustic music courses for male students. He said Shanghai should gradually experiment on expanding boys-only programs to the nine-year compulsory education stage.

Sun, co-author of Rescue the Boys, said that boy's failures in schools would cast ripples into their later lives and cause them more difficulty in finding ideal jobs and leading fulfilling lives. However, statistics from the job market dismiss such concerns: Employers are more willing to hire male graduates and offer them higher starting salaries.

According to a national survey on the starting salaries of college graduates covering 2,113 institutions of higher learning in 2007, male graduates were given higher starting salaries compared with female graduates in all the surveyed industries.

 As for people's anxiety about more boys acting like women, Professor Tu believes this trend has more to do with pop culture than with schooling. He said that it is not a serious issue as most boys transition smoothly into adult life.