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Edwina Dunn welcomes rise in interest in STEM subjects as gender gap narrows

Starcount CEO Edwina Dunn has welcomed the rise in interest in Science and Maths in this year’s A-Level results, with girls beginning to close the gender gap.

There has been a marked interest in Science and Maths in this year’s A-Level results. Maths is the most popular A-Level subject with entries growing by 2.5% to 97,627 students taking the subjects, with a 3.1% increase in Maths entries from female students. Meanwhile there has been a 6.9% rise in girls taking Physics (2.4% for boys). Physics has seen the joint fourth highest growth among all A-Level subjects at 3.4%, the same rise as Chemistry. Across the STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) spectrum, more than a third (36.2%) of all A-level entries were in these subjects, up from 34.5% last year, and 28% in 2009. Computer Studies has rocketed by 23.9 per cent.

Welcoming the results, Edwina Dunn said: “It is encouraging to see the rise in interest in Science and Maths. The balance is beginning to shift, with more growth in girls taking STEM in proportion to boys. With a shortfall of 40,000 annual jobs in STEM we have an urgent need to encourage more students to take the subjects leading to the high growth jobs of the future. Achieving gender parity will go a long way to solving this problem and giving the county the workforce it needs. ”

Edwina Dunn founded the 3-year Your Life campaign, which was set up to encourage more teenagers to study Maths and Physics. On the back of the campaign, the Future Finder web-app was set up connecting A-Level subjects with the jobs of the future. It is has more than a 100,000 users and is now run out of the Female Lead, the campaign to showcase inspirational female role models and give girls higher career aspirations.

See the Future Finder app here.

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