Girls outperformed boys in virtually all subjects, including maths and science, in this year's Junior Cert exams. The results were released to more than 60,000 pupils yesterday and grades were generally good despite the days lost due to the ASTI strike. Boys continue to trail girls in the most popular subjects, even maths and science where they have traditionally been stronger.
In higher level Irish, 12 per cent of girls gained an A, compared with 6.7 per cent of boys. Almost 83 per cent of girls received an honour in Irish, compared with 70 per cent of boys. In higher level English, boys performed particularly badly, with only 63 per cent able to score an honour, compared with 80 per cent of girls.
In higher level maths, the gap was closer with 78 per cent of girls getting an honour compared with 76 per cent of boys. In ordinary level maths, girls also did better with 70.5 per cent getting an honour, compared with 66 per cent of boys.
Failure rates for male pupils were acute in many subjects, especially higher level history where 8.8 per cent failed. Girls narrowly beat boys overall in this subject too. While boys surpassed girls in Italian and metalwork, taken by relatively small numbers, they trailed in science with 17 per cent of girls getting an A grade compared with 13 per cent of boys.
The worst failure rate this year was in ordinary level classics where almost 60 per cent failed. Ordinary level French had a 15 per cent failure rate, while two smaller subjects - Greek and Latin - had failure rates of more than 15 per cent.
Several teachers described the ordinary level maths results as disappointing and alarming, with 11.5 per cent failing the subject. This was up on last year. As pupils celebrated their results, the Vintners' Federation of Ireland said there had been a disappointing take-up of the Government's national age card by school children. It called for the Government to issue the card free and to speed up the processing of cards.
Its president Mr Richard Dunne said: "About 60,000 students with an average age of 15 received their results today. We have advised our members to be particularly cautious and ensure they only serve young people with the valid national age card."