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.
A letter to the Daily Telegraph which was published on 22nd August 1991.
It is not true, as implied by your editorial (Aug. 16th) and John Clare’s report to say that the A-level results this year indicate a turning away from maths, physics and from chemistry.
Although the number of entries to these subjects has fallen from last year, the number of 18 year-olds has fallen even further because of the disastrous decline of the birth rate in the 1970s. Thus expressed as a percentage of the number of 18 year-olds in our population, the proportion sitting A-level maths this year is higher (at 9.6 per cent) than last year (9.5 per cent), and the percentage of the age group actually passing maths this year is 7.2 percent against 7 per cent last year. Physics and chemistry similarly show an increase in the proportion of the age group sitting and passing at A-level.
The number of 18 year-olds will continue to fall year by year up to 1995. The number of science A-level entries can thus be predicted to continue to fall, accompanied no doubt by criticism of the exams as “too narrow” or “uninspiring”.
The truth is that only a minority of this or any country’s population has the interest and ability to study these subjects at advanced and university level. However, if you increase the proportion of the age group taking A-levels, it is quite inevitable that the increase will be taken up in expanding the numbers taking subjects such as social sciences and business studies, where it is easier to pass. This effect will then be misrepresented as a shift from science.
