Oral Answers to Questions

Claire Coutinho Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to encourage girls and young women to take up STEM subjects.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

What steps she is taking to encourage girls and young women to take up STEM subjects.

[The Minister for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch)]

We continue to fund numerous programmes to increase girls’ and young women’s take-up of science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. The number of girls’ STEM A-level entries has increased year on year, despite an overall reduction in cohort size. Since 2010, there has been a 31% increase in girls’ entries to STEM A-levels in England and a 34% increase in women accepted on to full-time STEM undergraduate courses in the UK.

[Claire Coutinho]

We know that the new core maths course is highly regarded for both its accessibility and its pragmatism, and therefore it can play a huge part in increasing participation in maths. Can the Minister tell me how we are engaging with female pupils in particular to encourage them to take up this fantastic course?

[Kemi Badenoch]

Our advanced maths support programme, worth £8 million per year, aims to increase the number of girls studying level 3 maths, which includes core maths. Out of more than 17,000 students participating in the programme’s events last year, 55% of attendees were female. We will be using research such as our behavioural insight studies to inform future work on how to get more girls studying maths after GCSE.