Review of the Current field
A critical look at the current field in both Physics and Electronics
A critical look at the current field in both Physics and Electronics
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In the UK, in 2016, the Institute of Physics (IOP) found that only 21.6% of A-level physics students were girls (IOP, 2018), a similar statistic as found by Ofsted (2015) with a 0.29 girl:boy ratio for students completing Year 12 (AS-level) physics – that is to say for every 1 girl studying A-level physics there is an equivalent 2.9 boys. More recently, in the 2024 summer examination series, the IOP report that 23.3% of A-level physics students were female (IOP, 2024). While this shows improvement over the proportion of students being female in 2016, the overall number of students have increased from 35344 (7685 female) (JCQ, 2016) to 43114 (10026 female) (JCQ, 2024). A simple statistical analysis will show that there has been a slight increase in the proportion of female students. This is promising at first glance, however, it is still disproportionate and the situation becomes more clear when we consider other science subjects such as Biology or Chemistry where, in 2019, the subjects combined saw 77% of students being female (Stem Women, 2020).
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