Parents have higher education hopes for daughters than sons

Mothers' desire to see their daughters benefit from opportunities that were denied previous generations of women is fuelling the trend.

Parental ambitions for girls from an early age is believed to be driving their increasing academic success at school.

Boys are now outperformed at all levels of the education system and make up fewer than half of students graduating from university.

If the trend continues, government funding chiefs have already warned that men could find it increasingly difficult to find well-paid work.

The research came as teachers suggested boys were more likely to want to follow the example of entrepeneurs such as Sir Alan Sugar and Sir Richard Branson and set up their own businesses rather than continuing in education.

Analysts surveyed 137,000 parents and 288,000 pupils at more than 500 secondary schools and found marked differences in aspirations for girls and boys.

The research found 66.7 per cent of parents with daughters aged between 11 and 16 said it was important their child went to university.

However only 61.5 per cent of parents felt the same about their sons.

Girls were also more ambitious themselves, with 79.9 per cent saying they wanted to go to university compared with 75.2 per cent of boys questioned for the research.

Academics pointed to a dramatic shift in society's attitudes in little more than a generation.

Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said, "When I was at school girls were forced to leave at 16 because more education wasn't thought to be good for them.

"They needed to get practical skills and become secretaries until they settled down and got married."