Ms Emer Neville:

We do not have statistics on that but I would say at least maybe one in three or one in four of students are studying subjects outside. It is an incredibly high number - far too high a number - because they are not getting those options in school. Speaking from my own experience, out of my class of approximately 20, at least ten were studying other subjects, such as music, elsewhere because the school did not have the resources to offer them.

Particularly when progressing to third level, if a student cannot access a subject in their school but they decide to study it at third level, they are at a massive disadvantage. For example, engineering is a subject offered in most boys’ schools, but if a student from a girls’ school decides to study it, they are at a disadvantage compared to the boys who have progressed on from the boys’ school. The girls are missing out on the foundation course. We see high dropout rates and things like that because of issues such as this. Again, in the single-sex schools, if the only subjects they are offering in a boys’ school, for example, are woodwork, engineering, technology and stuff like that, they will not progress towards options such as caring, music or anything like that because they are not seeing it.