We are failing a generation of boys admits Gordon Brown

The Chancellor said underachievement among boys had become an "acute problem" and said the rise of single parent families meant too many no longer had good male role models.

In an extraordinary speech ranging far beyond his traditional Treasury brief, Mr Brown also spoke in highly emotive terms about what he called the "soul of man".

Borrowing from the language of 17th century Protestant religious reformer Gerrard Winstanley, he spoke about a "moral sentiment that animates us as human beings" and would underpin a Government he led.

Attempting to open up clear dividing lines between him and Tory leader David Cameron, Mr Brown attacked the promotion of what he called "self-interested individualism against the encroaching power of civic institutions".

Aides said the Chancellor intended to take head on Mr Cameron's pledge to roll back the state and bring in voluntary organisations to help run public services.

Delivering the annual Donald Dewar memorial lecture in Glasgow, Mr Brown defended the role of the state in "serving the people and communities of the country".

Mr Brown highlighted the plight of Britain's six million carers, who he said wanted local and national government to do more - not less - to help them.

"Carers are not asking for government to get out of the way, to leave them alone," he said.

"Rightly, men and women who are carers want pensions and time off with respite care and an understanding of their financial positions," he said.

"Theirs is not a call for less action by our great national institutions, whether it be on the Health Service to our pensions service. They want us to do more and they are right."

On education, Mr Brown set out a powerful vision of how he intends to transform boys' prospects if he succeeds Mr Blair.

The Chancellor suggested the school curriculum should be tailored to meet the different needs of boys and girls and called for a "fathers' revolution" at home.

He said fathers must become "directly involved" in their children's learning and schooling and said more should be enabled to work "flexi-time" following the birth of a child.

"This is more important given the threefold increase in one-parent families over 30 years - and too often boys' loss of contact with male role models," Mr Brown insisted.

Mr Brown and Education Secretary Alan Johnson are to order a review of how teaching methods and the curriculum are tailored to boys' particular needs.

"Boys and girls appear to learn in different ways and at different paces," the Chancellor said.

"Boys get bored easily, tend to respond more to activity-based learning, flourish where there is access to computers and need clear targets.

"We must never accept the existence of a wasted generation of boys."

Girls now decisively outperform boys at all levels of the school system up to the sixth form.

The gender gap widens during primary school and by the age of 14, girls have opened up a massive lead in English and a slight advantage in maths and science.

This year, 80 per cent of girls passed national curriculum tests in English compared with just 65 per cent of boys.

Mr Brown said 61 per cent of girls went on to get five or more good GCSEs, against 51 per cent of boys.

Boys who struggled academically or came from backgrounds with low aspirations often went on to lead "wasted lives", the Chancellor said.

Shadow Education Secretary David Willetts said: 'Gordon Brown has belatedly come to realise that the gap between girls' and boys' achievement at school is a big problem, and he is quite right to focus on it.  

"His words are a refreshing change from those of Alan Johnson, who seems rather more complacent.

"The problem is not getting better, and if anything it has got worse over the last nine years. We need fresh ideas on how we tackle it, but sadly it seems Gordon Brown offers just more of the same."