Research from EngineeringUK suggests that the gender gap in young people’s interest in engineering and science is widening.
The third Science Education Tracker, previously run in 2016 and 2019, looked at the responses of 7,000 young people around their attitudes to and experience of science education and careers. The results make worrying reading given current and projected future workforce shortages across engineering and technology.
Engineering careers are seen as creative and versatile by most school students and over half young people believe they could become an engineer if they wanted to. However, interest in engineering careers drops as students progress through school. For those not interested in a STEM career, girls are more likely than boys to say this is because they don’t enjoy the subjects (57% vs 41%) and that they don’t feel they are good at them (38% vs 20%).
Across all age groups, boys report much higher knowledge of engineering careers than girls and are more likely to say engineering is something for them. Only 12% of girls say being an engineer fits well with who they are compared to 38% of boys.
Extra-curricular activities boost young people’s interest in continuing their STEM education. Half of students who visited a business said they were inspired to continue with STEM subjects and 45% of those who had a talk at school from someone working in STEM said the same. Yet just 43% of students had STEM extra-curricular activities in the previous year.
According to Dr Hilary Leevers, Chief Executive of EngineeringUK, the country needs hundreds of thousands more people entering STEM careers in order to get on track to meet net zero, to improve sustainability, and for the UK to prosper.
“The findings of the tracker are a serious wake-up call. We need to do more to keep young people interested in STEM as they progress through school and build their understanding of the opportunities available to them,” she concludes.
- UK manufacturing steps up to COVID-19 crisis - April 2, 2020
- Clustering Innovation - March 12, 2020
- A Global Monitor - March 6, 2020