Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of girl school leavers have gone on to study 'science, technology, engineering, and mathematics' subjects in higher education compared to boys in each of the past five years.

The department is not able to identify the percentage of school leavers who have gone on to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects in higher education (HE) at a reasonable cost or within the required timeframes.

The department has access to Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data. HESA is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK HE sector. These data are shared with the department and include a wide range of information on students from the UK studying in UK higher education providers (HEPs), including their sex and subject of study. These data are only collected in relation to their HE attendance and do not cover any school data.

The department is able to supply the number of UK-domiciled students studying STEM subjects at UK HEPs broken down by sex, based on HESA data. Due to the change in subject classification from 2019/20 to 2020/21, the department is only able to provide a comparable time series from 2020/21 onwards.

These data are provided in the attached spreadsheet. There is no single official definition of which subjects make up STEM. The HESA science grouping includes subjects like medicine, nursing and agriculture that may not be included in other definitions of STEM.