2nd December 2015 3:00
By Blue Tutors
The Office for Fair Access has revealed that there is a growing gender gap in universities, with women far more likely to attend university than men. A third of universities in England are now running programmes targeted at young men, in an attempt to encourage applications. Access initiatives include taster subjects lessons, school talks and targeting local football clubs for the purposes of encouraging men to consider applying to university. Admissions service UCAS has revealed that young women are a third more likely to attend university, and constitute a significant majority in subjects such as medicine, law and biology.
Research from the Centre for Education and Employment at the University of Buckingham suggests that the gap has been widening since girls have been performing better at school, and the expansion of university courses such as nursing, which attracts more women than men. Girls significantly out-perform boys at GCSE level, and the gap is also widening at A’ level. Women are also more inclined to want to go to university, which the Centre for Education and Employment attributes to a greater love of studying amongst women. Recent research has also shown stark disparities in gender amongst students from the poorest backgrounds, with boys from poor backgrounds the least likely to take A’ level courses.
Fair Access to Higher Education said that the gender gap is part of a long term trend in OECD countries. They noted that there are significantly more women taking teaching and law courses, but that men still dominate in science, maths, engineering and technology courses. Other commentators have pointed out that the fact that more women are applying to university should be seen as a victory for campaigned to improve women’s access to education. Professor of education Penny Burke has said that more needs to be done by schools and universities to tackle gender stereotypes in education.