Meeting of the Parliament 12 March 2014
Thank you.
I turn to statistics about gender equality in education. As Jenny Marra said, in the academic year 2005-06, there were 257,000 female enrolments in colleges but, seven years later, that figure stood at 155,000. That means that there has been a reduction of 39.5 per cent in the number of full-time, part-time and short-duration courses that women undertake. It is telling that that downward trend began in 2007-08, and the figures have fallen without fail every year since. The reductions have affected women of all ages, but those between 25 and 59 have been hit particularly hard. In comparison with 2007, 47 per cent—or 50,000—fewer female adult learners are in further education, whereas the male figure has fallen by half as much—from 65,000 to 41,000.
Given those figures, I find it hard to take the Scottish Government seriously when it talks of harnessing independence to boost female employment rates in this country to Swedish levels, mainly because it focuses almost exclusively on one side of the coin—childcare—when, in reality, another equally important problem must be addressed, which is the number of women who are without formal qualifications.
As has been said, two of the 12 new regional college board chairs are female and 31 per cent of university board members are women. However, we have first-class female college principals in the further education sector—Paul Little, who is the City of Glasgow College’s principal, is one of the few male principals.
As I have only five minutes, I will move on quickly. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has found that 27 per cent of female STEM graduates secure a permanent position in their area of study, in comparison with 52 per cent of males. That means that, of the 56,000 female STEM graduates in Scotland, just over 15,000 continue to work in the sector after university. Skills Development Scotland has revealed that, in the first three quarters of last year, 79—or 5 per cent—of the 1,665 new engineering starts were female. Depressingly, the figures for engineering can be exchanged with those for construction, transport and other sectors.
I firmly believe that education is one of the front lines. I am pleased to report that we have made progress in recent years, but there is no doubt that we still have a lot to do. If we are to achieve our ultimate aim of ensuring equality of opportunity for all Scotland’s children, we must start with greater access to education.