The Pat Kenny Show discusses whether boys and girls should be educated together or if their learning styles are too different 

Senior economics researcher at University of Limerick Dr Darragh Flannery recently published a report that found no difference in academic outcomes between single-sex school and mixed gender schools.  

Talking to The Pat Kenny Show, Dr Flannery said they controlled for socioeconomic backgrounds and found there is no gap in performance in English and mathematics in different types of schools.  

“From the raw data, single-sex schools seem to have a premium in terms of reading, maths and science compared to kids in co-educational schools,” he said. 

“But when we factor in other types of factors, they dissipate and go away.” 

Dr Flannery said all-girl schools typically have a much higher socioeconomic profile which would influence perceptions of academic performance.  

‘Closing schools’ 

Aontú Spokesperson on Education and Assistant Principal Eric Nelligan said he doesn’t think every school should be single sex – but it’s wrong for the Government and political parties are trying to “close schools when we have a shortage”.  

He said the Labour Party have published a bill that seeks to close all single-sex schools within the next 15 years.  

“Our focus shouldn't be on removing a type of education system,” he said. 

“It should be about increasing enlarging, making better.” 

The Labour Party’s bill proposed that all single-sex schools would become co-educational within 15 years to continue to receive State funding and does not specify the closure of schools.  

Types of learning 

Mr Nelligan said girls and boys learn slightly differently, requiring the option for single-sex schools.  

“Boys are probably a little bit more brash, they're a little bit louder,” he said. “Boys like learning by short bullet points information.” 

“Typically, teenage girls are more mature, they learn better verbal skills and reading skills and things like that.” 

“As a teacher, if I have a group of boys in front of me, I can teach in a certain way and more students will learn or benefit from that style of teaching.” 

Mr Nelligan also said that participation in sports is higher in single-sex schools.

“If teenage boys play a sport, they get quite competitive and maybe a bit rough,” he said. “Maybe some people could be body conscious. They might not want to participate to wear clothes or maybe slightly more revealing.” 

Generalisations 

Education columnist with The Irish Examiner Jennifer Horgan said Mr Nelligan’s generalisations of gender is a “disservice to young people”.  

“That's all about one person looking at the girl with the boy [and] putting their expectations on them,” she said.  

Ms Horgan said it's important “we don’t put lids on jars” and assign gender stereotypes.  

"We [shouldn’t] decide before they walk into the room, what type of people they're going to be or become based on their gender.” 

Ms Horgan also refuted Mr Nelligan’s suggestion that different genders learn differently.  

“The more we learn about neuroscience, the more we discover how similar male and female brains are,” she said. “There's no difference in size - it's less than 1%.” 

“This idea is that the data is out there that ‘boys learn this way, girls learn that way’ - it's just it's not true. It's not backed up by science.”