Communications of the ACM
Female Students Outnumber Males in A-Level Science Entries
The number of female students in the U.K. taking exams in A-level sciences overtook males for the first time ever this year, the culmination of decades-long efforts to encourage the take-up of science, maths and technology.
But the publication of the summer exam results for hundreds of thousands of students across the U.K. showed that in England the proportion of female students among those taking sciences rose to just over 50%, as the numbers of both males and females taking STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) subjects accounted for 21% of all A-level entries, up from 19.2% in 2018.
Jill Duffy of the OCR exam board said the shift — a 10 percentage point change compared with 2012 — was the result of years of effort to get over some of the stereotypes girls might have had about studying science.
Biology was the most popular subject for females, who accounted for 63% of entries. There were also more female chemists proportionally, but males continue to dominate in physics, making up 77% of all entries in England.
Scientists warned that the improvement should not overshadow the fact that several subjects, including math and computing, remained heavily populated by males.
From The Guardian
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