Pros and cons of single-sex schools

Sir, – Barbara Ennis, principal of the all-girls (and fee-paying) Alexandra College, advocates single sex education (Education, January 21st).

Part of her justification for this segregation is her view that Irish-produced television dramas, such as Love/Hate, do not include strong female characters and we "have to look beyond our own screens to Scandinavia and New Zealand" to see women who are represented as equal to men.

Perhaps the fact that schools in Scandinavia (and perhaps New Zealand too) tend to be co-educational (and non-fee paying) is a help in this regard? – Yours, etc,

SÉ d’ALTON,

Palmerston Road,

Dublin 6.