Gender Differences in PSLE Performance

Asst Prof Tan Kheng Boon Eugene asked the Minister for Education (a) what is the relative performance of Primary 6 boys and girls who sat for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) between 2001 and 2011, broken down into quintile performance bands; and (b) whether the results demonstrate that girls had an academic advantage over boys at the PSLE.

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Mr Heng Swee Keat: Between 2001 and 2011, girls performed slightly better than boys at the PSLE. Dividing all PSLE students into performance band quintiles, girls are two percentage points over-represented in the top quintile and three to four percentage points under-represented in the bottom quintile at PSLE. This has been broadly consistent over the last 10 years.

Such differences occur across education systems worldwide. Girls outperform boys academically on average, not just at age 12, but also at older ages. For instance, in the 2009 PISA reading assessment of 15-year-olds, girls outperformed boys on average, in all participating countries. In fact, the difference in PISA 2009 performance between girls and boys in Singapore is smaller than most other countries, and smaller than the OECD average.

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