Ms Moira Leydon:

It is a good question. An even worse figure is that this drops to 66% in mixed schools. It is complex. There are a number of factors, the first of which is that girls' schools are typically voluntary secondary schools, which tend to have older buildings and facilities, etc. School infrastructure is critical. If you are talking about having a wide curriculum choice, you need the space and you need modern space. I do know who referred to the old days when you sat in serried rows, but it is around a long time. You sat in serried rows and you learned. That is not the way the curriculum is enacted or taught nowadays. You need high-quality learning spaces and enough teachers in the system to be able to teach the subject. A dilemma which frequently faces schools is that they want to offer physics or chemistry, which are minority subjects anyway. To employ a physics or chemistry teacher, that teacher must also have a number of other subjects. There may not be sufficient demand to create a full-time, permanent post for that teacher. Decisions are made about what to prioritise. The unions have consistently responded that there should be, as Mr. Duffy said, curricular concessions in terms of teacher allocation and additional teachers allocated to the school to facilitate a wide curriculum. We have also made the point, which is a view the three teacher unions share, that we should be able to give teachers permanent jobs but they are shared between schools.