Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 30 Jan 2002

Vol. 547 No. 1

Written Answers. - School Curriculum.

Róisín Shortall

Ceist:

1148 Ms Shortall asked the Minister for Education and Science the percentage of girls' schools which provide classes in science to junior certificate students; the percentage of girls' schools which provide classes in science to leaving certificate students; and his strategy to correct the shortfalls in this regard. [1406/02]

Minister for Education and Science (Dr. Woods)

The data below refer to the number of girls' schools offering science subjects in both the junior and leaving certificate programmes and the number of girls' schools taking science subjects in both programmes in the school year 2000/2001.

Junior Certificate: total number of girls' schools offering the junior certificate programme = 161; number of girls' schools offering science in the junior certificate programme = 160; percentage of girls' schools offering science in the junior certificate programme = 99.4%.

Leaving Certificate: The leaving certificate data is shown in the following table:

Subject	Number of girls' schools offering the subject	Total number of girls' schools offering the leaving certificate programme	Percentage
Physics	133	1,56 7 of these schools also offer physics and chemistry combined as one subject and 8 offer agricultural science.	85.3%
Chemistry	146	156	93.4%
Biology	155	156	99.4%
Home Economics (S.S)	153	156 9 of these also offer home economics (general)	98.1%
Applied Maths	38	156	24.4%

At junior certificate level, 99.4% of girls' schools offer science. At leaving certificate, in the three main science subjects – physics, chemistry and biology – the percentage of girls' schools providing the subjects ranges from 85.3% to 99.4%.