Irish students are comfortably above average performers in maths and science, according to a major international study.
Ireland registered in the top half of 39 participating countries, outperforming France, Germany and Denmark. Irish maths students also did significantly better than their counterparts in England and Scotland.
But Ireland lags far behind the high achievers of the survey - Singapore, Korea and Japan - and is well behind the best European performers, the Czech Republic in science and Belgium in maths.