Explaining the ‘swing to science’ among UK pupils - HEPI report

For decades, pundits and politicians have been talking about a ‘swing to science' – a shift of students in schools and universities from the study of humanities and social studies to the study of ‘STEM' (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). But for most of this time, the opposite was happening – there was ‘a swing away from science'.

In a new HEPI paper released today, The Swing to Science: Retrospects and Prospects (HEPI Report 187), Cambridge historian Peter Mandler pinpoints the moment – 2013 – when the proportion of university degrees in STEM actually began to grow. With an unusual combination of longer-term historical perspective and up-to-date educational data, Mandler reveals the forces brewing behind that swing before 2012 and why it has continued since.What kinds of students are moving to STEM, which subjects do they prefer, and what do these choices tell us about the factors influencing their subject choices?

The key points addressed include:

• Common-sense explanations – the impact of the financial crisis in 2007-09, or of the tuition fee hike in 2012 – only go so far: the swing in degree outcomes from 2013 has to be explained by tracking back to school choices in the early 2000s.
• A big jump in candidacies for Maths A-levels started as early as 2005.
• A smaller jump in ‘triple science' at GCSE started about the same time, but for different reasons, and did not last as long.
• Girls' participation in STEM A-levels has contributed only a small part of the ‘swing to science':  participation among specific ethnic groups seems to have contributed more.
• The swing can be seen in Scotland too but is less pronounced than in England and Wales.
• Widening participation as a whole drove a swing away from STEM for 40 years but continues today apparently with the opposite effect.

Professor Mandler concludes with some lessons for policymakers, emphasising the limits of how far they can influence subject choice in what is at present a largely demand-driven system on a mass scale, unless they are willing to take much more draconian control of school curricula to achieve their ends.

Mandler concludes:

‘Quite apart from the doubts that might arise about the effects of over-promoting STEM – doubts about labour-market demand and value, and about steering students away from subjects where they are happiest and do best – policymakers who do wish to promote STEM would be well advised to acknowledge that at present student demand is doing their work for them. That might leave more head-space for problems which are going in the wrong direction and are more amenable to policy solutions.'

Nick Hillman, the Director of HEPI, said:

‘This fascinating report attempts to untangle some knotty questions. In particular, why did young people swing towards science a decade and a half ago?

‘It seems that policymakers had a hand on the tiller, including Gordon Brown who pushed pupils towards triple-award science GCSEs as well as his successors in the Coalition, who put more of the costs of higher education on to the shoulders of young adults. Yet the scale of the shift cannot be entirely explained by such things as demographic and cultural changes, not to mention global fashions, appear to have played a role too. 

‘As we await the outcome of the new Government's Curriculum and Assessment Review, it is useful to have a reminder that we can influence young people's educational choices, and therefore their future trajectories, should we as a society wish to do so. It is equally useful to have Professor Mandler's warning that even major political interventions can only shape the weather to a partial extent.'

Notes for Editors

1. Professor Peter Mandler was born in the USA in 1958, educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities, and has taught in Britain since 1991 and at Cambridge since 2001, where he is the Professor of Modern Cultural History and Bailey College Lecturer in History at Gonville and Caius College. He writes on the cultural, social and intellectual history of Britain since c.1800 and on the history of the humanities and the social sciences in the English-speaking world. From 2012 to 2016, he was President of the Royal Historical Society and, from 2020 to 2023, he was President of the Historical Association. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His latest book The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Britain's Transition to Mass Education since the Second World War (2020) was published by Oxford University Press.
2. HEPI was founded in 2002 to influence the higher education debate with evidence. We are UK-wide, independent and non-partisan. We are funded by organisations and higher education institutions that wish to support vibrant policy discussions, as well as through our own events. HEPI is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity.