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GCSE gender gap on the rise

21/08/2008

The education gender gap has widened since last year, according to GCSE results out today.

Provisional results from exam boards show girls outperformed boys as expected, but to a greater extent than 2006-07.

Overall, today's results have seen the biggest annual rise in students getting top grades for almost 20 years.

Previous GCSE exam results had shown male pupils to be catching up with their female classmates.

But 7.9 per cent of GCSEs taken by girls were awarded A* grades, compared to 5.7 per cent of boys.

23.5 per cent of exams taken by girls were awarded an A or above, while for boys the proportion was 17.9 per cent.

For girls the percentage represented an annual rise of 0.5 and 1.4 points respectively, compared to 0.3 and one for boys.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) said of the 5,666,907 exams taken this year – down slightly from 5,827,319 last year – 6.8 per cent were awarded A*, a 0.2 point improvement on 2006-07.

20,7 per cent were awarded A or above, 1.2 points up from last year, while 65.7 per cent were A* to C.

The overall pass rate was 98.4 per cent.