The bar chart illustrates the proportion of students who successfully passed their school leaving examinations in various subjects, differentiated by gender, during the academic years 2003 to 2004.
Overall, it is evident that female pupils consistently outperformed their male counterparts across most subjects, with notable exceptions in History and Geography.
In the subject of English, the passing percentage for boys was recorded at 49.0%, while girls achieved a significantly higher rate of 65.2%. Mathematics exhibited a similar pattern, with 48.0% of boys passing compared to 54.0% of girls. In the realm of sciences, boys passed at a rate of 48.1% in Any Science, compared to a slightly higher 50.9% for girls. The trend continued in French, where only 19.1% of boys succeeded, in stark contrast to 37.4% of girls. Geography presented a close margin, with boys at 30.1% and girls marginally ahead at 30.4%.
Conversely, in History, the percentage of boys passing the exams was 20.5%, slightly surpassing the 19.0% of girls. This is an unusual trend, as it deviates from the overall tendency of higher female success rates. Similarly, in German, boys performed slightly better with a passing percentage of 30.2%, compared to 32.6% for girls. Lastly, in the category of Other Languages, boys achieved a passing rate of 39.0%, which was only marginally higher than the 38.9% for girls. Despite some variances, females tended to excel in most subjects, underscoring a broader trend of academic performance disparities by gender.