It started with a commercial. Many years ago, I was a kid watching TV when an ad came on about the state of education in our country. It featured a young girl putting a dunce s cap on a young boy. The tagine was "the future looks bleak for boys in eduction". Oh yeah? I thought. We ll just see about that.

For the next few years I applied myself with a vengeance in class, absorbing every bit of knowledge I could and learning every nuance of every subject: from history to mathematics, science to technology. (Of course I was hopeless on the sports fields but that s where my fellow young men applied themselves the most.) In most cases I was near the top of my class. But so too, were the girls.

From French to History class, the highest achievers were nearly always female - i was the only male in my French college class for example. What the advert had said was true. On the sports field the boys continued to reign supreme (at least at our school). But in every other subject, the girls were outpacing the boys.

Undeterred I studied hard and got to university, where again, at least half the students were female. And again they excelled with high grades, many going on to land prestigious jobs on graduation. My generation of graduates had a strong female contingent, and within a few years, these women were visible in most major corporate, civil service or entertainment roles. Now I hear that women are the majority of students in higher education.

But what disturbs me is the alarming number of young men who are dropping out. If this were the sports field, the streets, or even the battlefield, any man knocked down would get straight back up (it s in our nature after all.) So why is it that so many men are quitting education?

I get that it s a frustrating system, sometimes engineered by misandrists who clearly want to drive us mad (one overtly feminist lecturer at my old faculty comes to mind.) But you must not quit. If we just gave up in a sports game, the other side would win. And I tell you now: the same applies to education.

If you drop out, you give up your place to someone else. They will most likely use that to gain a good position of power at your expense - trust me, I've met the ones who have. And they know how to make life hard for you.

Knowledge is power and the mind is a muscle. If this were the gym, you d be honing that 'muscle' every day. (After all this is what martial arts masters have been doing for centuries.)

We need to treat education as a vital resource: something that gives us a competitive edge over others.

And that s why I say to all men and boys in eduction:

Do. Not. Quit.

Only by staying at the table can you have your say on the way things are. I m keen to hear your experiences of education and why you think so many men are quitting.