Ofsted chief: Girls must do even better than boys at school

Girls need to perform even better in exams than they do at present if more of them are to wrestle top jobs from boys when leaving school, according to the head of the Government's education standards watchdog, Ofsted.

David Bell, the chief inspector of schools, in an address to independent girls' school headteachers, cautioned against concentrating too hard on narrowing the gap between the performance of girls and boys but said schools should still be "concerned about how well girls are doing".

His comments immediately brought a warning from teachers' leaders that more effort should be put into tackling discrimination in the workplace, instead of just accepting that it existed.

Mr Bell told headteachers there was "strong evidence that girls need to do better than boys if they are to gain the benefits that are properly theirs" He said the "relative weaknesses" in boys' performance had "stolen all the headlines in recent times".

"It could look as if we weren't really worried about the girls," he added. "There have been some real successes in terms of girls' participation in maths, science, design and information technology in recent years.

"Never the less, I still think we should continue to be concerned about how well girls are doing," he said.

Evidence published by the Equal Opportunities Commission earlier this month showed that a woman who continued in employment throughout her working life was likely to earn £250,000 less than a man in a similar position.

It also showed that more men were still being appointed to top jobs in industry, and even to the headships of schools, despite the fact that women were getting just as good degrees as their male peers. However, women were more likely to get top jobs if they had superior qualifications to the men who were going after the same post.

Mr Bell said research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed that the gender gap in terms of getting jobs was "only half as much" for women with university qualifications as it was for those with a lesser qualification. He said this showed that there was an added benefit from the trend of more girls going on into higher education.

"The achievement of girls continues to be a matter of pressing concern if girls are to overcome some of the disadvantages that are still inherent in our economy," the chief inspector added.

Figures show that 56 per cent of girls get five or more top grade A to C grade passes, compared with 45 per cent of boys. However, by the time they reach the age of 20, girls' earnings are 10 per cent behind those of boys. At present, girls outperform boys in all national curriculum tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds, at A and AS levels as well as in GCSE.

Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "We should be celebrating girls' achievements and encouraging boys and we must do more to tackle the issue of discrimination post leaving school. This has to be addressed.

"There are far too few women at higher levels of employment across the country. For instance, in teaching, two thirds of the employees are women yet this is not reflected when it comes to those who get headships," he said.