Girls beat boys in Junior Cert at almost all subjects

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.

Boys’ worst results were in French and German. In higher level French 64.8 per cent of boys got honours, compared with 73.3 per cent of girls.

Both sexes did badly in French at ordinary level. This subject had one of the highest failure rates of any exam, with 10.4 per cent of girls failing and 14 per cent of boys.

Boys lagged even further behind girls in German. At higher level 81.2 per cent of girls achieved honours, compared with 68.4 per cent of boys.

However, it was at ordinary level in the subject where the disparity was most stark; 3.8 per cent of girls failed this subject compared with 10.4 per cent of boys.

Failure rates for English, Irish and maths were considerably lower for both sexes at higher and ordinary level. However, here too boys did worse.

In higher level English the failure rate for boys was more than three times that of girls, with few girls failing (0.8 per cent), whereas 2.6 per cent of boys failed. The percentage of girls failing ordinary level English was also 0.8 per cent, while 2 per cent of boys failed.

Almost 2½ times as many boys as girls failed higher level Irish – 3.2 per cent compared with 1.3 per cent. At ordinary level, boys had more than twice the failure rate – 4.8 per cent compared with 2.3 per cent.

The gender gap was not as great in maths, but a substantial number of boys and girls failed to achieve even a passing grade on the ordinary level paper. Some 8.5 per cent of boys and 6.1 per cent of girls failed ordinary level maths. At higher level, 3.6 per cent of girls and 4.1 per cent of boys failed maths.