Ireland: Girls beat boys in Junior Cert at almost all subjects

Submitted by anthony on Sat, 2009-09-12 03:58

Story here

Excerpt:

'GIRLS ACHIEVED better Junior Cert exam results than boys in almost every subject this year, with boys faring particularly badly in modern European languages.

The Junior Cert results for girls and boys echo those of the senior State exam. Girls also outperformed boys across the range of subjects in this year’s Leaving Cert exams.

Junior Cert girls did better in the core subjects of English, Irish and maths at both higher and ordinary level. They also outclassed the boys in science, history, business, French and German. In each of these subjects boys achieved fewer honours and more failing grades than girls.

The only popular subject where boys got more honour grades than girls was higher level geography, where 77.1 per cent of boys got honours compared with 76.7 per cent of girls.

However, their failure rate at ordinary level in this subject was higher than that of girls – 4.7 per cent compared with 4.2 per cent. Boys did do better in metalwork and material technology, although few girls sat these subjects.'

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The girls are behind 0.4 percent in high level geography - better do something!!

(And while we're at it, cajole more girls into taking metalworking classes.)

-ax

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Submitted by axolotl on Sat, 2009-09-12 08:44

I'm surprised they even tested in metal work. Usually when boys do well in a subject, that subject is not tested, and what isn't tested usually gets cut from being offered. Here in the USA you don't see many public schools offering metal work or wood shop.

This is usually a surprise to older people that remember taking wood shop and auto shop in their day. It is long gone in today's public schools.

Only subjects girls do well in are offered. Infact if a boy does poorly in a class or is labeled as needing more help in a core subject, usually his option of taking an elective that he is interested in is cut.

So if a boy is lucky enough to even be offered a class such as auto shop and he excels and is interested in it. If he should fail social studies then he will likely be assigned to more social studies, and not be allowed any more auto shop classes. Makes no sense to take away what a child is naturally good at.

This is why I hate school. With homeschooling you can allow your kids to do what they are best at, and at the same time help them understand their weaker subjects.

BTW, I did not intend to stereotype boys in my example nor am implying that autoshop, woodshop, etc. is all boys are capable of achieving academically. I also have a great respect for auto mechanics as I believe it takes a lot of intelligence to be one.

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Submitted by Kris on Sun, 2009-09-13 18:52