UK News 16-08-2001 Girls Continue To Lead Boys At A-Level who: Schoolgirls what: Increase gender gap with new AS level results when: Yesterday snippet: "Girls reasserted their academic superiority yesterday," says The Guardian, "as the new AS-level results were published, showing an ever-widening gender gap." "In addition, the numbers achieving top grades in A level hit new heights," says The Times, "Almost nine out of ten entries managed at least grade E." However, education correspondent Gwen Owen warns that AS levels are driving students to take "fashionable subjects" like media studies and psychology at the expense of traditional disciplines like mathematics, physics, French and German. The gender gap "was blamed on coursework for A and AS levels being better suited to girls," explains The Mirror. "In the 19th year running of record marks overall, girls got better scores and more A-grades than their male classmates." "The exams are getting more girlie," says Ruth Lea of the Institute of Directors, who tells The Telegraph that the exams no longer represent the "gold standard" in education. "Girls are more conscientious than boys at doing course work." The AS level results are a "small step forward for this country`s education system" where we should have made a "great leap into a better-educated future," says The Independent, which blames New Labour for soft-pedalling on reform because it feared "a backlash from traditionalists who will brook no alteration of A-levels". [... more]

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