Girls perform better in most Junior Cert subjects

GIRLS HAVE performed better than boys in almost all subjects at this year’s Junior Cert exams, according to a gender breakdown of results released today.

Girls had more honours and lower failure rates than boys in most subjects at both higher and ordinary levels.

This gender breakdown follows a similar pattern to this year’s Leaving Cert results and last year’s Junior Cert results.

Girls outperformed boys in the compulsory subjects of English, Irish and maths, achieving a higher honours rate (A, B or C grades) and lower failure rate (E, F or NG grades) than boys.

Irish and English had low failure rates among all students. However, in both subjects the failure rate among boys was more than double that of girls.

Girls were well ahead of boys when it came to receiving honours grades in these two subjects and the difference was wide at both higher and ordinary levels.

In higher level Irish, 85.4 per cent of girls were awarded honours grades compared with 76.1 per cent of boys. Similarly, in higher level English 82.6 per cent of girls got honours compared with 70.7 per cent of boys.

The difference between genders was less pronounced in maths. However, girls still fared significantly better than boys, particularly at ordinary level, where 77.4 per cent got honours compared with 70.9 per cent of boys.

Boys performed worse than girls in French and other modern European languages.

Failure rates in ordinary level French were among the highest for both genders. Some 13.9 per cent of boys failed ordinary level French compared with 9.5 per cent of girls.

Girls also received more honours grades in French with 72.7 per cent of girls receiving honours at higher level compared with 64 per cent of boys. The contrast was more stark in the less popular languages where the failure rate among boys was almost double the failure rate of girls in ordinary level German, Spanish and Italian.

The difference in performance was clear in higher level German where 69 per cent of boys received honours compared with 81.5 per cent of girls.

Girls also performed better in the common subjects of geography, history, science, business studies, music, art and religion but the gender difference was less marked than in other subjects.

In each of these subjects boys were awarded more failing grades and girls more honours grades at all levels.

One exception was higher level geography where a slightly higher percent of girls failed (3.4 per cent compared with 3.1 per cent).

The failure rate was higher among boys in higher level history (6.3 per cent compared with 8.1 per cent).

In higher level science, honours rates for both sexes were above 80 per cent but the failure rate of boys was double that of girls at higher level (0.7 per cent of girls compared to 1.4 per cent of boys).

Similarly, the failure rate for boys was more than double that of girls in higher level business (3.5 per cent of girls failed compared with 7.4 per cent of boys).

In religious education 2.3 per cent of boys failed at ordinary level compared with 3.8 per cent of girls.

In art 88.7 per cent of girls were awarded honours grades at higher level compared with 75 per cent of boys.

Metalwork was the only subject where boys received more honours and failed less than girls in both higher and pass levels. At ordinary level 59.4 per cent of girls received honours grades compared with 69.5 per cent of boys.

Almost a fifth of girls failed ordinary level metalwork compared with 14 per cent of boys.