EDUCATION


Mind the STEM gap


How good careers advice can help to close both gender and pay gaps


Research has highlighted the influence of gender stereotypes on students who are at crossroads in their career path. It suggests that good careers advice is vital in helping students determine – regardless of gender – how they can translate their aptitudes and skills into viable careers.


Is the future set at age 15? Students’ higher education choices are influenced by many different factors – careers advice, parents, teachers, peers and a student’s natural aptitude for a subject. In addition, global survey results from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revealed the influence that gender stereotypes have on student’s decision-making. The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment


(PISA) survey evaluates education systems worldwide by testing the science, maths and reading skills of 15-year-old students. Despite having similar PISA science scores to boys, the results indicate that 15-year-old girls are less likely than boys to picture themselves in a science and engineering career by the age of 30. Interestingly, in several countries such as Finland and Greece,


girls perform better in science than boys at the same age, but the vast majority of girls are significantly less likely than boys to imagine themselves in a science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) career. Therefore, this suggests it has nothing to do with girls’ aptitude in science, and a lot more to do with stereotypes and the perception of male-only roles. Edd Williams, a recruitment and academic consultant and


author of Is Your School Lying To You? describes the perception issue surrounding STEM subjects. “Women have historically been overlooked and ignored in the sciences – an imbalance that remains today. The nerdy mathletes from film and TV have done little to advance the STEM cause, but the likes of Elon Musk [business magnate and inventor] are helping to reverse its fortunes a little, as are people like Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft.”


Studying a STEM subject at higher education The research also showed that students are highly influenced by the gender division in the job market and tended to reproduce the same patterns when choosing a subject to study at higher


Edd Williams One option to encourage more students to choose STEM subjects


and careers is to make them aware of the wide range of careers available to them after graduating with a STEM degree, or of the subjects they need to study to enable them to pursue STEM at higher education. This underscores the importance of good careers advice in helping children to determine their futures, independent of their gender. “There is the political and commercial will to promote STEM,


both academically and as a career for women,” explains Mr Williams. “But there remains a stark divide, with only 9 per cent of females


going on to study them at degree level, compared to nearly 30 per cent of males. Why? In short, there is a lack of knowledge about the opportunities out there because careers advice is ceded too often to teachers whose primary sphere of experience is teaching, and unless that thing is science, more often than not it simply does not feature on their radar.”


education. In some countries, the gender gap in a study subject is even greater than the gender gap in the profession it leads to. At higher education, girls largely dominate in the fields of


education and health and welfare: subjects that tend to lead to female-dominated careers such as teaching and nursing; a self- perpetuating problem. In contrast, those who choose to study engineering,


manufacturing, construction and ICT are most likely to be male. For example, across the 72 participating countries, only 20 per cent of new entrants to study ICT-related subjects are female.


The importance of good academic and careers advice The UK government’s Industrial Strategy white paper highlighted the shortages in sectors that depend on STEM skills, and acknowledged that increasing the uptake of STEM subjects by girls is one of the ways to address the skills gap.


52 | Re:locate | January 2018


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