"Internal factors within the educational system are the primary reason for the improvement in girls' achievement" Discuss.

Girls achievements have improved over the years due to the external and internal factors of gender differences within achievement. Statistics show that since 1985 boys' and girls' achievements in school have both improved drastically in the percentage of pupils achieving 5 or more A*'s to C at GCSE level. However, although both have improved it shows that there has been a rapid increase in the improvement of girls results and a significant gap has opened up. These achievements can depend on a number of gender differences, as well as explanations about their class and ethnic differences, it can be known as external factors - factors outside of school and education, such as society and a pupils family background, but aswell as external, there are also internal factors - factors which happen within school and the education system.
Schools try to offer an Equal Opportunites Policy, meaning that both boys' and girls' are treated equally within school and especially within the classroom. This policy came about due to the feminist idea which made a major impact on the education system. As a result it meant that gender differences were now avoided as much as possible, both genders were now entitiled to equal opportunities in school. Many groups have come about from this such as GIST ( Girls Into Science and Technology) who encourage girls to pursue in careers such as mechanics and engineering, a career that would have been stereotyped as a males job. Schools now have alot more female role models visiting their schools who encourage girls to follow the career path they want whether it is traditional or not. The same has come about for the boys' and they are encouraged to go into careers such as nursing, which is again traditionally a female job.