Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 42 of the Careers Strategy, whether his Department plans to widen the intention to improve the accessibility and transparency of data regarding gender disparities in STEM subject choices at age 16-19 to include other characteristics such as ethnicity, disability and socio-economic inequality.

The department already publishes a wide range of information on science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) by gender through statistical first releases (SFR). For instance, we publish data on STEM A level entries at institution level by gender in the maths and science tables (table 13a) of the A level and other 16-18 results SFR at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results-2015-to-2016-revised.

The ‘Ethnicity facts and figures’ website also contains ethnicity breakdowns for attainment 8, which includes STEM subjects is available at: https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest.

In addition, for the first time in 2017, we published disadvantage measures in the 16-18 school and college performance tables.

We are continuing to explore what more we can do to improve the transparency of STEM data by gender, and we continue to consider whether to expand this to other characteristics.