Oral answer to question provided on Thursday, 23 June 2005 in the House of Commons, by Meg Munn (Labour), Department of Trade and Industry.

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Graduation Statistics

Answer

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments and concern. I agree with him that the time is long gone when we should consider women as capable of studying only certain subjects. Even within the sciences, however, there remain considerable differences, with 66 per cent. of graduates in bio-sciences being women while for computer sciences, engineering and technology, the proportion is much lower. My Department is working closely with the Department for Education and Skills in supporting its strategy to improve the quality of science teaching, including making it more relevant and inspiring to girls and evaluating careers advice.