A striking feature of matric results is the increasing prominence of female top achievers.

Girls lead the way in achieving distinctions - in 2008 they got 78 854 distinctions in all subjects compared to 48 015 by boys.

Last year, 300 000 girls wrote matric compared to 251 000 boys.

Of those who passed, 34% of the girls got a university entrance pass compared to 31% of boys.

Curiously, however, failures by girls (40.5%) were slightly higher than for boys (38%).

This is in contrast to other countries where females typically graduate from high school at a higher rate than males.

In America, for instance, a 2003 survey found that 72% of female pupils graduated compared to 65% of male pupils.

The trend here is that girls have a lower drop-out level in reaching Grade 12, but lag a bit behind boys in passing even though many girls excel at the top end.

An intriguing finding by the Sunday Times Top 100 Schools survey last year was that 44 of them were single-sex - 25 all-girls' and 19 all-boys' schools.

Headmistresses of these top girls' schools attributed their success to the fact that they were more focused and committed to their studies than boys.

According to Marna Jordaan of Afrikaanse Hoër Meisieskool in Pretoria, competition amongst the girls was fierce whereas "when they are with boys (in a co-educational school), they want to impress them so they don't outshine them".

Research on the superiority of single-sex schools is not clear-cut because it is difficult to make proper comparisons e.g. they might do better because their pupils come from richer homes or their parents are more motivated in sending them to such schools.

It does seem, however, that girls generally perform better in single-sex schools, and that lower-class boys do better as well.

In America there has been a resurgence of single-sex public schools which were outlawed in 1972, but permitted again in 2002.

New all-boys schools for African-Americans are popular and successful in New York.

Part of the justification is that boys and girls have different learning styles related to differences in brain function.

Girls mature earlier and tend to be more collaborative, intuitive and verbal.

It is also easier for girls to take leadership positions in an all-girls environment and to excel in what are seen as male-oriented subjects like maths and science.

Conversely, it is more likely that boys will take up music or the arts in a boys school.

Girls' schools in South Africa could provide a safer environment and bring down teenage pregnancies.

I recall public hearings in the Gauteng Legislature on inner city schools where mothers said they were desperate to send their daughters there rather than risk rape in a township school.

When the Oprah Winfrey Girls School was opened, Education Minister Kader Asmal said: "We need to have some all-girls' schools because of girls' vulnerability to abuse and harassment and also to macho competition from boys ... many young girls are pressurised to grow up very fast and start families."

Unfortunately, the single-sex option is largely restricted to the suburbs where such schools are available.

There are good educational and social reasons, as well as the issue of parental choice, to provide more single-sex schools in townships where most people live.

Jack Bloom is a Democratic Alliance member of the Gauteng provincial legislature. This article first appeared in The Citizen.

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter