Thats not how I read it at all. It is of course great young women are being educated. However, if you women are more educated than young men then it is possible

Thats not how I read it at all. It is of course great young women are being educated. However, if you women are more educated than young men then it is possible for the 'average years of education' stat to be going up while the corresponding stat for men is going down. It would be odd to say that 'young men are less educated than the average young person' because men and women essentially completely partition the space of persons. It is obvious if young men are less educated than the average young person that women would have to be more educated than them.