The Leaving Cert points system currently appears to favour girls

[belvoboy]

I thought this was a bit topical with the talk about gender balance following the aptitude tests for entry for medicine. This post is more general than that specific issue (which isn't solely to do with gender anyway) so I think deserves a separate thread.

I've been interested in As in Maths since the time I did my Leaving and you needed an A in Honours Maths to do Actuary which was one of the careers I was interested in.
What I noticed was every year I saw, boys got more As (and now A1s) than girls.
But in recent years, headlines that girls do better than boys in every subject (incl. maths) get published including this year.

I haven't seen the figures broken down for this year as I don't think they're out but more boys than girls got honours in honours maths this year (I think the raw number is a much more interesting and relevant figure than the percentage out of those who did honours). Usually the difference is bigger for A1s so I imagine boys got a lot more A1s than girls again.

If one does a Google search for: "leaving cert boys girls maths 2009 irish" one will see a room of headlines like "girls outperform boys" so a press release I presume is being sent out with the statistics, saying this. *Any journalists or anybody know who is sending it out and what it says?) I presume it's the Dept of Education. (I remember they used to have a list of the three staff in their gender equality unit on the website and they were all female - people might say that's not a big deal but would such people be happy if all the staff in the gender equality unit were male? I don't think so).

Anyway I thought I'd post some stats on the A1 grades from 2008 which are the last figures I have seen:
http://www.examinations.ie/statistic...higher_all.pdf

Looking at the A1s for English, Irish and French, girls get more A1s than boys (65%, 191% and 119.1% more respectively).

But for maths, boys get 70% more A1s than girls.

I have read before that girls are, on average, better at languages and verbal reasoning. And do better, for example, in the verbal section of the SATs in the US. And boys do on average on the mathematical reasoning section of the SATs.

For the Leaving Cert, students generally have to do one maths subject and three languages (English, Irish and a foreign language) so one can see how the points system favours girls [particularly if the requirement for a course is to get lots of A1s e.g. Medicine under the old system].

[Mercurial]

Well, maths isn’t exactly a big part of most college courses, and if boys are only really better at maths, then it’s tough luck for us I suppose. (not that geography, French or Irish have been relevant to my college degrees)

[belvoboy]

Well, maths isn’t exactly a big part of most college courses, and if boys are only really better at maths, then it’s tough luck for us I suppose

Numerically, many more boys than girls get A1s in Physics, Applied Maths and Technical Drawing, to take three examples. Of course, the most basic explanation for this is that more boys do them. But given study after study finding boys do better on things like 3-D visualisation and mechanical reasoning on average, if everyone had to do these subjects along, in the same way people now have to do English, Irish, Maths and a language (I know not everyone has to do the last one but for lots of college courses its essential), then the results could be like the maths results, with boys doing a bit better in terms of the numbers of honours and quite a bit better in terms of the number of A1s.

Computer programming, if it was introduced, might be another subject boys might do better on (it might not be to do with aptitude but that they found it more interesting/less boring; I found subjects like English boring and I think on average subjects like English are more interesting to girls than boys (how many boys/young men read the type of books that are on part of the English syllabus - while I have female friends who would find them of interest (as well as their movie adaptations!). Similarly languages - females seem to learn languages for fun much more than males.]

And then girls wouldn't necessarily be doing "better in the leaving" than boys.

Saying "tough luck [for boys]" doesn't mean that the system is as good as it could be - a system can ("always") be improved. Or it can be balanced in other ways e.g. by also combining the points with aptitude test results like has been introduced for medicine.

[zakalwe1]

what do you suggest? english type A Levels where you elect to do 3 science or 3 humanities?

while i concur with your assertion, i think the other subjects will stand to you in terms of having a balanced education.

anywho, 3 years from now you'll find that is males outnumber females in masters and phds. it balances out.

i do accept, however, that the gender imbalance in medicine is scary. it is anticipated that future GP services will be a fraction of where we are now and we'll have to "import" more Non-EU doctors to replace the gap. we're going to have tonnes of part-time doctors but few who will work anti-social hours i.e. the hours when most symptoms occur.

[sauntersplash]

Its no surprise that girls outperform boys in the leaving cert. Seventeen/eighteen year old boys are largely occupied with questioning authority at this age. They are too busy banging their heads against the establishment to sit down for twelve hours straight and learn a bunch of largely useless facts just because their mammy told them to. It is during this time that people learn how to be independent, free thinking, suspicious of the forces in society which shape them.

Girls tend to be different. People call it 'maturity', when they toe the line around leaving cert. time. I think this is a shallow analysis. There comes a time in everybodies life when they stop and think "what the hell am I doing this for"? It just so happens this tends to happen a bit later in women. This is not a totalising prejudice, simply an analysis of the statistics, and personal experience.

Who gives a monkeys anyway? Life is long and full of surprises and the leaving cert. is but a blip in its course.

[Tony_1975]

My biggest problem with the leaving cert is that it is such a blunt tool and takes little account of someones suitability for a particular course.
Someone who does well in Physics, Maths and Chemistry can lose out on a science course to someone who get even better scores in Irish, History and German (who then goes on to drop out).
It makes no sense.

[belvoboy]

My biggest problem with the leaving cert is that it is such a blunt tool and takes little account of someones suitability for a particular course.
Someone who does well in Physics, Maths and Chemistry can lose out on a science course to someone who get even better scores in Irish, History and German (who then goes on to drop out).
It makes no sense.

Exactly.
Personally I'd like to see more use of weightings or bonuses for certain subjects.

Alternatively everyone should do aptitude tests. One idea I had was to bring the fifth years in to do aptitude tests and give those doing the Leaving a day off and do the aptitude tests we did in school (DATS - Differential Aptitude Tests) (or they could be done during the Junior Cert exams or if people missed them, during the Leaving Cert) and use the results from them in some combination with the Leaving Cert results.

College courses could decide themselves what are the most relevant for their course. For example, engineering courses would likely make use of the mechanical reasoning and 3-D visualisation scores. Having everyone doing aptitude tests would also help people with course and career selection.

Also at the moment, I think there is pressure on people to give up extracurricular activities in the Leaving Cert year (some people would also drop them in fifth year). But, for example, sports are good for people and it's also not good for society if we have a nation of fatties. So it'd be good if the whole assessment of people wasn't based on the Leaving Cert where even intelligent people would have to make a lot of sacrifices to get very very high points.

[code twinkle]

Its no surprise that girls outperform boys in the leaving cert. Seventeen/eighteen year old boys are largely occupied with questioning authority at this age. They are too busy banging their heads against the establishment to sit down for twelve hours straight and learn a bunch of largely useless facts just because their mammy told them to. It is during this time that people learn how to be independent, free thinking, suspicious of the forces in society which shape them.

Girls tend to be different. People call it 'maturity', when they toe the line around leaving cert. time. I think this is a shallow analysis. There comes a time in everybodies life when they stop and think "what the hell am I doing this for"? It just so happens this tends to happen a bit later in women. This is not a totalising prejudice, simply an analysis of the statistics, and personal experience.

Who gives a monkeys anyway? Life is long and full of surprises and the leaving cert. is but a blip in its course.

Generalise much?!!! Plus, you think boys are both banging their heads against the establishment AND sitting down and reflecting on "what the hell am I doing this for?"

Also where are these stats you speak of? I can imagine the surveys - "International research shows 18 year old males, when they're not signing up to the military, are questioning the establishment and life in general"!

[Trampas]

Who gives a monkeys anyway? Life is long and full of surprises and the leaving cert. is but a blip in its course.

......a "blip" that is quite likely to decide what one does at 3rd level, who one meets, where one works, how much one earns and whether one is happy in that career. Some blip.

[Sailor]

what do you suggest? english type A Levels where you elect to do 3 science or 3 humanities?

while i concur with your assertion, i think the other subjects will stand to you in terms of having a balanced education.

anywho, 3 years from now you'll find that is males outnumber females in masters and phds. it balances out.

i do accept, however, that the gender imbalance in medicine is scary. it is anticipated that future GP services will be a fraction of where we are now and we'll have to "import" more Non-EU doctors to replace the gap. we're going to have tonnes of part-time doctors but few who will work anti-social hours i.e. the hours when most symptoms occur.

I am sympathetic to this view but bear in mind that you have already had 5 years in secondary school and will usually be about 17 when you start the 2 year A level course. A levels are great if you have a good idea what you want to do - but for the undecided the restriction on the number of subjects can be a bit of a problem - although a lot of A level students carry a fourth subject for the first year.