More pupils will return to a mixed sex classroom this year than ever before.

However, with as many as a third of our students still being educated in single sex secondary schools, Ireland remains an educational outlier.

The Labour Party wants gender-integrated education to be mandatory and recent research throws the benefits of segregated schooling into question.

"There is a young generation of parents who believe their sons and daughters would benefit from being in class together."

Ryan Moore is principal of Rathdown School, an all girls school in South County Dublin which will attract male pupils from next year.

"I've had phone calls for principals of all girls schools up and down the country asking how did we do it, what was our methodology, because they're really interested in leading their school communities from where they are now to co-ed", he said.

"There's no doubt there is a young generation of parents who believe their sons and daughters would benefit from being in class together.

"Our enrollment in our junior school is up 33% Just over the course of the last three months."

Performance

Proponents of single sex schools have long argued that pupils perform better there, but recent ESRI research has thrown this argument into dispute

Mr Moore said: "Fee charging schools are, in the main single sex. That's why the research can be skewed."

"The biggest determining factor are the socioeconomic background of the family and the family unit and the qualifications of those parents who are in the home."

In many countries, single sex schools were outlawed decades ago.

Remnants of a British colony

France went co-ed in the 1950s and Sweden followed in the 1970s.

Lucy Michael, a sociologist with expertise in inclusion and equality, said former British colonies are more likely to still have segregated education.

"Although we think of gender segregation as being a very Catholic thing in Ireland, in fact, it's influenced both by the dominance of Catholic culture in Ireland, but also by probably being an ex-colony of Britain as well."

Dr Michael said that Irish society is lacking in terms of gender equality and that mixed education could help alleviate gender stereotypes, sexism, and even toxic masculinity.

"We very often focus on the likely impact on an individual of single sexual co-ed education, rather than the impact on society.

"When we looked at the impact of COVID here in Ireland, what we saw was that a lot of women were still carrying the burden of childcare, housekeeping and juggling a career much more than their male partners were

She said making schools co-ed won't "naturally create equality", but it is an environment where boys and girls can "negotiate equality".

"They don't have to perform to please the boys."

On the other side of the argument is Barbara Ennis, principal of the all-girls Alexandra College in Dublin.

She believes that single-sex schools allow girls to "be themselves".

"They don't have to perform to please the boys", she said, adding that "they don't have to worry about what they look like".

"A lot of research has shown that teachers give more attention to boys than they do to girls in the classroom."

Ms Ennis has never had a request from a parent to make the school co-educational.

"And, in fact, I believe very strongly that if we did go down that road, we would lose half our students or maybe more", she said.

Legacy and elitism

Alexandra College is over 160 years old and some families have had several generations educated there.

Dr Michael said: "When we see that there's no actual barrier to having co-ed, there's no distinct advantage to single sex schools, then the only reason to keep them is for legacy reasons - class or religion."

"We have to decide whether that legacy is worth keeping. And on the whole I don't think it is."

"If it's imposed from on high, I would say there will be a rebellion here."

So what will schools like Alexandra College do if Labour's bill passes and mixed education is made mandatory?

"We were the first school in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, who set about specifically setting up a school for girls to go on to third-level education.

"It was all about giving independence to women, and we have never ever moved away from that throughout those 160 plus years, so I can see is happening in the next 160", Ms Ennis said.

"If it's imposed from on high, I would say there will be a rebellion here."

Listen back to Newstalk presenter Shane Coleman's take on same-sex schools.

Reporting by Sarah Madden