No significant fall in science studies
August 23rd, 1993
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 23rd August 1993.
It is not true that the 1993 A-level results show that science is being “shunned” by sixth formers (editorial, Aug. 19th). If you look at the numbers taking maths, say, as a proportion of 18 year-olds in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, you find for the years 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 the following percentages: 10.5%, 10.6%, 10.7%, 10.6%.
The percentages of 18 year olds actually passing maths at A-level were 7.7, 8.0, 8.2 and 8.7 for these four years respectively.
The proportion taking maths has thus been remarkably stable. The reason why absolute numbers have declined over these four years is the very sharp decline in the birthrate in the 1970s, dropping from 755,000 (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) in 1972 to a low point of 595,000 in 1977. Numbers doing maths may thus be expected to continue to fall until 1995 after which a slow recovery should take place.
In any case, the proportion of students at British universities reading Science, Engineering and Technology subjects has been 40-50% for a long time – a higher percentage than that in most other Western industrialised countries.