Worrying academic gap is not to be welcomed

I refer to Padraic Neary’s letter (September 27) in response to mine (September 23) on the topic of girls outperforming boys in exams.

I took my Leaving Cert in 1964 when boys did not seem to be significantly underachieving relative to girls and when boys’ secondary schools were staffed almost exclusively by male teachers.

As for “vive la difference”, I support the sentiment as traditionally understood but the gap between the sexes is a “difference” of a much less welcome kind which suggests there is something more at work here than the infatuation of adolescent boys with girls, something which, as Mr Neary implies, existed even in the 1960s.