GCSE results show a growing gender divide in physics and chemistry. Photograph: Martin Shields/Alamy
The headlines around this year's GCSE results have focused on the fall in the proportion of students getting top grades. But for organisations like the Wellcome Trust, involved in science education, there's another story in the mix.
Last week's A-level results showed that the healthy growth in numbers taking physics, chemistry and biology at A-level has continued for the fifth year running. Sciences now make up 17.8% of total UK A-level entries, up from 17.0% in 2012. This is important if the national shortage of people with Stem skills – estimated to be 40,000 graduates per year by the Social Market Foundation – is to be overcome. But the results also showed a worrying widening of the gender gap: the number of boys taking A-level physics rose by 3.9%, but for girls the rise was only 0.2%.
In this week's GCSE results, we see continued growth in the numbers taking each of the separate sciences: physics is up by 2.1% on 2012, chemistry by 4.4% and biology by 5.0%. This bodes well for the future of these subjects. It is true that grades have fallen, as a result of the exam regulator Ofqual's moves to end grade inflation by "stabilising" standards at GCSE and A-level. This may seem hard on this year's candidates – especially in science where 53.1% of pupils were awarded A* to C, down from 60.7% last year – but it needed doing if these qualifications are to retain real value.
We are now in an era where GCSE and A level are effectively norm-referenced to give roughly the same proportion of each grade year-on-year. While this may not in itself affect the numbers taking each of the sciences, there may soon be another factor at work as a result of the proposed changes to school accountability systems. Today's GCSE results from Northern Ireland carry a warning.
The Department for Education has proposed a suite of new accountability measures for secondary schools in England to go with the new GCSEs being introduced from 2015. The intention is to reduce the emphasis on the proportion of pupils getting five or more good GCSEs, which has led to some adverse behaviour by schools, such as concentrating efforts on boosting pupils at the C-D grade borderline. However, the new suite of measures being proposed is so complex that it is difficult to predict how schools will change their entry policies for science as they attempt to optimise their performance.
Under current arrangements, all pupils are expected to take a science course at GCSE that is balanced across physics, chemistry and biology. Most take either three separate science GCSEs or a "double award" science qualification which has balanced content across these three sciences. A small proportion take a "single award" qualification that is, again, balanced across the three sciences.
With the new, complex assessment and accountability arrangements from 2015, there is a risk that balanced science may no longer be the norm. We can be sure that school leaders will look at how they can optimise their school's performance in every subject, including science. Evidence from Northern Ireland suggests there may be a fall in the number of students taking a balance of all the science subjects.
Over the last five years, pupils in Northern Ireland have no longer been required to study a balance of all three science subjects at GCSE level, and can choose instead to take one, two or three qualifications in these subjects individually. This has led to a striking change in the distribution of science subjects studied.
In 2007, entries for biology, physics and chemistry GCSEs in Northern Ireland were spread evenly across subjects and genders. But this has changed: in 2013, 4,489 pupils sat biology, 54% of whom were female; 3,195 sat chemistry, 49% of whom were female; and 3,092 sat physics, 41% of whom were female.
The changes to assessment and accountability in England carry the risk that pupils at state-maintained schools may no longer take all three science subjects, leading to similar changes in the distribution of science studied, with falls in physics and chemistry and a growing gender divide.
It is important that all pupils have a balanced science course to age 16: physics, chemistry and biology are equally important for scientific literacy. Ministers now need to make it crystal clear that, whatever the complexities of the new accountability system, all pupils in England will be expected to follow a science course that includes elements of the three major sciences to the age of 16.
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