Schools should encourage girls to focus on ‘hard sciences, not psychology’

Girls should be persuaded to ditch psychology switch to ‘hard sciences’
That is the view of Barnaby Lenon, chair of Independent Schools Council
He said too many girls were taking the subject when they were capable of getting good grades in physics and chemistry instead

Sarah Harris for the Daily Mail

Published:
01:18 GMT, 19 September 2015

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Updated:
01:43 GMT, 19 September 2015

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Barnaby Lenon, who chairs the Independent Schools Council, said too many girls were taking psychology when they were capable of getting good grades in physics and chemistry instead

Schools should persuade girls to ditch studying psychology and switch to ‘hard sciences’, an education leader says.

Barnaby Lenon, who chairs the Independent Schools Council and was headmaster at Harrow, said too many girls were taking the subject when they were capable of getting good grades in physics and chemistry instead.

This is making it more difficult for them to gain places on sought-after university courses such as medicine and engineering, he said.

Mr Lenon said that private schools had helped to increase the number of girls studying sciences but this was not mirrored in the state sector.

The problem needs to be addressed in order to bring more women into science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) careers, he said.

‘Teachers should be saying, you’d be good at physics and it leads to more university degree options than psychology,’ he told the Times Educational Supplement.

‘It’s in the interest of the country as a whole that more pupils should be doing hard sciences and that there should not be a gender imbalance within individual subjects.

‘Girls who should be doing physics are doing psychology.

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‘It’s a problem for the hard sciences and it’s a problem for the girls who might have the potential to become doctors or engineers.’

But Professor Catriona Morrison of the British Psychological Society said: ‘Discussions that continually polarise science subjects as gender-specific are unhelpful and reinforce stereotypes.

‘Students chose different subjects for a range of reasons. It is complex and multifaceted.’

Mr Lenon said that private schools had helped to increase the number of girls studying sciences but this was not mirrored in the state sector (file photo)