The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for raising this important subject and respect her experience in the sector. It is a crucial area for the economy, and one where we need to increase the number of people, particularly women, who have relevant IT skills.
Earlier today I attended a “hackathon” event at Facebook headquarters, where 80 talented young coders from around the world were developing applications for social learning, and I am pleased to say that there was a good representation of young women there. Organisations such as Facebook are doing an enormous amount of good work with schools to inspire young people to take up careers in IT, but let us be honest: we have a long-standing problem with computer science in this country and with the number of women studying it.
As the hon. Lady will be aware, under the previous Government the proportion of women taking computing A-levels fell from 12% to 8% as a proportion between 2004 and 2011. The current situation is indeed poor. For A-level computer studies in 2012, only 255 of the 3,420 entrants—just 7.5%—were girls, which represents a decline of three quarters over the past 10 years. There is a similar problem with physics, as 6,500 girls took physics A-level in 2012, which is only 21% of the total cohort, and the situation has remained static over the past 10 years. The number of girls studying maths A-level has doubled over the past 10 years, but the situation is not as positive for further maths, which is very important for STEM subjects at university. Some 3,700 girls took further maths in 2012, which is only 30% of the cohort.
As the hon. Lady pointed out, the situation is very different in other countries, particularly emerging economies, which have seen their share of women studying computer science and engineering increase drastically. In India the proportion of female undergraduates has doubled, and in Malaysia technical jobs are dominated by women. As she pointed out, 26 April is international girls in ICT day, which is very important. The Government think that the situation has to change.
A lot has changed in IT since I used to program BASIC at school in the 1990s. There has been a technology revolution. Technology affects every area of our lives and so many different jobs. It has changed the way we do politics and business and so many things about how we deliver public services. A sound knowledge of how ICT works and of the underlying architecture of computing is important for everybody, whether they are looking to get into motor manufacturing, politics or any area of commerce. It is a universal skill that we all need, and all young people will need it. It is a very important part of our curriculum developments. That is why we are reforming the ICT curriculum. We disapplied the existing curriculum because it was not fit for purpose.
Justin Tomlinson
That is an incredibly important point, because when I visit representatives of the UK games industry, they say time and again that graduates simply are not equipped with the necessary skills and almost have to start again, and that more often than not it is easier to import labour from abroad, which is creating further barriers to females and males in this country who could play an important part in this growing economy.
Elizabeth Truss
I thank my hon. Friend for that point and agree with it. Our new computing curriculum is very different, because it is not just about how to use the software and programmes, but about getting young people coding from a very early age and understanding the architecture of computing.
Chi Onwurah
Can we clarify this point? We have the ICT curriculum and the computing curriculum. There are no guidelines or standards for ICT, because the national curriculum has been disapplied, but are there any guidelines to encourage girls and make it more appealing to them? I am pleased to hear that the computing course has been made more vigorous.
Elizabeth Truss
To be clear, under the national curriculum, what was the ICT curriculum will be called the computing curriculum, so we are renaming the subject. We have been working with the British Computing Society to create a new curriculum that addresses issues such as how to use digital devices, but that also focuses much more on understanding programming and coding. Primary school students will, therefore, be doing programming from quite a young age, using programmes such as Scratch, which has been developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and which enables young children to programme an on-screen cat to do certain things. It is attractive for children and gives them an understanding of how programming works. By the time they get to key stage 3, they will be learning at least two programming languages, so this is a real step change.
We have also recently announced that GCSE computer science will be added to the list of science options in the English baccalaureate. We are, therefore, taking computer science very seriously as a subject. We recognise the importance of computing knowledge and skills for the future of the economy, so we want to raise its quality and profile in schools. We also want to make it a universal subject that is attractive to boys and girls alike, which is important.
The Department has been working in partnership with the British Computing Society to help to prepare teachers for the challenges of teaching this curriculum. I assure the hon. Lady that many employers and leading companies in the IT industry are already engaged in helping schools to implement that curriculum.
I announced this morning that the Government will provide the British Computing Society with more than £2 million over the next two financial years to support the training of computer science master teachers, who will then communicate with other teachers across the network to make sure that the subject is taught well in all our schools.
I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to start young in encouraging girls to take up these careers. It is important that young people should be encouraged not to close off options by dropping subjects that may be important later. That points to a wider issue relating to engineering, IT and other STEM disciplines, because those subjects have the highest earning premiums with regard to A-level, degree and PhD, and women often lose out on the possibility of valuable and engaging careers because they do not study those subjects earlier in their school life.
We think that primary school is really important, and we are strengthening the mathematics curriculum. It is also important that children are exposed to programming and coding at an age when they can see their potential and how exciting they are before going to secondary school. That is a critical part of our programme.
Britain has a wider cultural problem—I think a few other countries suffer from it as well—with the perception of careers in computing, IT and engineering and people not understanding the wide variety of careers available. I have been in discussions with leading companies, some of which the hon. Lady has mentioned, about how we can raise the profile of engineering, show the myriad options available and raise the profile of IT and make it an aspirational career for young people. I think that primary school is particularly critical in being able to do that.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who is interested in financial education, will be interested to know that I discussed with the Personal Finance Education Group this morning how we can talk about the value of careers as part of financial education, so that children understand what skills will be expected in the careers of the future and what they should study if they want to achieve those goals in their life.
It is important to mention that a career in ICT is not just about computing. Scientific and mathematical skills are needed as well. We are working to ensure that everybody studies mathematics to age 18 by introducing new core mathematics qualifications for students who have a GCSE but are not doing A-level maths. We have announced an expanded further mathematics support programme to ensure that the number of students who take maths and further maths continues to increase. The feedback that I have received from the IT industry is that it often recruits from other countries because there are more students with higher level maths skills.
We are giving computing a new impetus through a challenging new curriculum, sustained support for teacher training and robust qualifications.
Chi Onwurah
I welcome the measures that the Minister has mentioned on improving the teaching of maths, computing and STEM subjects more generally. That is very important, but will she say what she is doing specifically to support girls into ICT?
Elizabeth Truss
Because we are making the subject universal, girls will be doing programming as well as boys. That is important. As the hon. Lady said, it is important not to gender divide this technology, which underlies the whole of our society and politics. We have programmes for getting girls to study physics, such as the Stimulating Physics Network. However, our view is that so few students are learning programming skills at an early age that the best thing to do is to have a universal programme that reaches everybody.
A lot of organisations work in this area—the hon. Lady mentioned some of them—such as the Computer Club for Girls, the Code Club, the Computing at School network and Apps for Good, the chief operating officer of which in the UK, Debbie Forster, is an excellent role model for girls in the industry.
There is a particular issue with girls that we need to address. However, I believe that our focus on ensuring that teachers are trained up so that they understand the career opportunities in IT and know what programming is and how to teach it to young children will be critical in shaping the future and in shaping young girls’ expectations of their potential.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising these issues.
Julie Hilling
Before the Minister moves on, will she say more about careers? There is now a deficit in the careers advice for all young people, but particularly for girls. Such advice often rests with teachers, who might not have any experience of industry, having gone from school to university and back to school. How will she bridge that gap and provide more careers education that allows young people to understand the vast range of jobs in engineering, and in ICT specifically?
Elizabeth Truss
I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. Our approach is to engage with industry through the British Computer Society to ensure that there are more direct links with schools. It is helpful for students to see a local business person in the classroom and to understand what they do and what opportunities are out there. It is therefore helpful for businesses to engage directly with teachers. We have made the new national curriculum much more flexible so that teachers can design their own curriculum that is based on the national curriculum, but that reflects the resources available locally and engages with the master computer science teachers that we are creating.
Elizabeth Truss
No, I am sorry, but I have already taken a number of interventions.
It is now up to schools, working with industry, to engage all pupils, particularly girls, and ensure that they have the opportunities they need. ICT skills need to be universal and something that we as a society do. Computer science will be taught in the national curriculum alongside subjects such as maths, English and languages, because we believe it to be vital.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central for raising the issue. The need for more girls doing IT, physics and maths should be higher up the agenda of our national ambitions, so I am grateful to her for drawing attention to it. Demand for high-level skills in computing will only grow in the years ahead, and it is vital that we tap into the 50% of the population who are not currently doing as much IT as they could. We must also improve the general level of programming skills across the spectrum.
In work, academia and their personal lives, young people will depend on their technological literacy and knowledge, and we have a duty to ensure that they have the right skills that will serve them well in their future study and career.
Question put and agreed to.