Girls continue to do better than boys in education and the performance gap is getting wider.
A report published by the Department of Education finds that girls continue to outperform boys in both Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations. The report measures this gender gap going right back to the 1930s.
It's long been known that girls do better at school than boys.
In 1990, the girls were outperforming boys at Leaving Cert by four per cent. By 2005, this gap had grown to more than 10 per cent. In addition, too many boys are not even completing school or the Leaving Cert exam.
Minister for Education Mary Hanafin says that school completion is a huge problem and two thirds of those early school leavers are boys.
For people without qualifications, two thirds of them are boys.
Muiris O'Connor, author of 'Sé Sí: Gender in Irish Education' says that he would like to see policy makers and teachers engage with the evidence provided in the report to begin a debate on gender and learning in education.
The report also shows that while girls do better at school, in their subsequent careers they fare much worse. For example, just eight per cent of professors in universities are women and in the civil service, the higher you go the less women there are.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 26 July 2007. The reporter is Emma O'Kelly.
