We need programs like this in Canada too...

Could you imagine any Provincial Minister of Education talking like this???

Every secondary school should provide a bookshelf packed with spy novels and action stories to help boys catch up with girls, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said yesterday.

They should choose books "containing positive, modern, relevant role models for working class boys", he said.

"Boys like books which depict them in a powerful role, often as sporting, spying or fighting heroes," he told a meeting of the Fabian Society in London.

To encourage reading boys needed "not just Jane Austen, but a necessary dose of Anthony Horowitz as well", he said.

Books that would appeal to "working class boys" included Raven's Gate, about a boy with supernatural powers by Horowitz, The Fall, a spy novel by Robert Muchamore, and Bloodtide, the Viking saga by Melvin Burgess.

Schools should also contain more male role models such as "old boys" or local boys made good, he said. The successful former pupils should be invited to return to inspire those coming after them. "Eighty-five per cent of primary school teachers are women and doing excellent work, but this can mean that many children from lone-parent families can reach the age of 11 without having any significant contact with a male role model," Mr Johnson said.