Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of trends in the number of pupils taking up STEM and ICT higher education courses in the last five years.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service publishes data on the number of applicants accepted to full-time undergraduate courses at UK higher education providers by subject group.

The number of UK domiciled 18 and 19 year olds accepted to full-time undergraduate courses in each science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subject group is shown in the attached Table 1. It shows that total acceptances to STEM subjects for UK 18 and 19 year olds had increased by 24% between 2012 and 2017. This compares to an increase of 14% for all subjects over the same period.