Dr Rowe is a research director at the Australian Council for Educational Research, and is always in high demand as a keynote speaker at local and international professional seminars and academic conferences.

Around 20 parents and teachers from Goodooga, Walgett and Collarenebri came to hear him speak on his view of educational processes.

Dr Rowe said the teaching children received at school affected the outcomes of children more heavily that other factors.

"The most important resource that a school has is the quality of its teachers. And in fact the socio economic background of kids and the socio intellectual capital they come to school with doesn't determine their outcomes, what does is the quality of teaching and learning provisions."

He said it has been widely acknowledged for many years that girls have always excelled at school more than boys.

"In the context of both the local and international research based evidence, all of the current hype about the gender differences between girls and boys, it's really nothing new, we've known this for the last couple of years, girls have always done better than boys.

"The problem is that the gap is getting wider, because the society in which we live is demanding higher and higher and more sophisticated level of verbal reasoning and written communication skills."

He said society demanded a high level of literacy skills, and used the basic skills test as an example of this.

"The basic skills numeracy testing in grade 3, you need a grade 5 level of literacy to even understand what the problem is. And that's the reality of the society in which we live."