Sir, – The hand-wringing over the poorer performance of girls at the higher levels of maths is slightly wearying (“Sharp decline in girls’ performance in higher-level Leaving Cert maths”, News, November 21st). A look through the gender statistics of both junior and senior cycle results indicate that for some time now a significant gap has opened up in most subjects, with boys clearly being left behind. Most metrics of educational outcomes show girls have overtaken boys and that it is boys who are struggling the most in our schools.
It is great to see girls doing so well, but if comparable educational outcomes are the objective, perhaps we’ve lost our way a little bit, become unbalanced in our assessment of how both sexes are doing and need to spread our concerns more widely. – Yours, etc,
CHRIS GARVEY,
Glasnevin,
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Dublin 9.
