How do girls and boys differ in educational achievement in ICT?
According to our research in the White Paper on “Women and ICT: Why are girls still not attracted to ICT studies and careers?” at secondary school level, there is very little difference between boys and girls in terms of achievement in ICT studies – although their self-perception is different. Girls tend to understate their skills whereas boys usually overestimate their competence. Girls often report that they enjoy studying ICT. In countries where this is not the case, it is typically due to an over-emphasis on pure programming skills in the curriculum – which is typically less attractive to girls compared to e.g. multimedia skills. However there is a major issue in transition to tertiary level – most girls ‘drop out’ of ICT studies in favour of other subject areas such as foreign languages. This is in part explained by the fact that girls often study fewer related technical subjects (e.g. maths, physics) than their male counterparts (despite having comparable levels of achievement) a
