Girls perform better in high school
Girls do better in high school than boys. On average, they obtain a higher secondary education diploma and schools more often issue a HAVO or VWO diploma to girls. Boys are already lagging behind one year after seventh grade.
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That appears from recent figures of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), which the research bureau published in early September. Statistics Netherlands took a closer look at the figures of students who started in the first year in the 2010/2011 school year, 190 thousand in total.
School advice and test
There are few differences between girls and boys in the school advice of the teacher and the Cito test in group 8. For example, they both scored about equally well on the language, arithmetic and mathematics components of the test. In the first year the distribution is also fairly equal across the types of education. Boys with 12 percent are more likely to start in a VWO class than girls with 10,8 percent.
Although the start is more or less the same, the figures thereafter diverge further. Boys, for example, drop out more often than girls and stay seated more often. Three years after seventh grade, 14,8 percent of boys have done a year again. For girls this is 9,4 percent. At the same time, 4,3 percent of boys drop out without a diploma, while 3 percent of girls drop out of education without a diploma.
School career
Statistics Netherlands looked at the figures for the entire career of the students. Girls, for example, more often (43,2 percent) obtained a HAVO or VWO diploma. For the boys this is a percentage of 38,2. The figures also show that girls who start in pre-university secondary school are much more likely to graduate: 73,5 percent compared to 66,9 percent of boys.
The same trend can be seen in students who started in a HAVO / VWO class. 32,2 percent of girls attain a VWO diploma within seven years. 24,8 percent of the boys succeeded, they drop out more often and obtain a VMBO-G or VMBO-T diploma. In pre-vocational secondary education, girls are also more successful than boys in advancing an educational level.
'The differences found between boys and girls have existed for some time,' writes Statistics Netherlands. 'Boys have been performing less well in secondary education for years than can be expected on the basis of their definitive school advice and their placement in a secondary school type.'
