Female students enrolled in tertiary education still outnumber males, but they shy away from ICT, engineering, manufacturing and construction courses, official figures show.
Data issued by the National Statistics Office yesterday shows an overall increase in the number of students who pursued tertiary education in the 2014-15 scholastic year. According to the data, there were 13,216 students following courses at tertiary level, up by 5.1 per cent over the previous year.
Yet while there were 7,388 women enrolled and 5,828 men, the data shows vast gender gaps in some of the courses. Of the 649 students who opted to read for degrees related to information and communication technologies, only 139 were female.
Similarly, engineering, manufacturing and construction courses attracted just 205 female students, compared to 789 males.
Contacted about the figures, Centre for Labour Studies director Anna Borg said that while not surprising, the gender gap was still very worrying. “This comes as no surprise, and such figures are to be expected – but that doesn’t mean that we should do nothing about it.
“This stems from social constructs that reinforce gender stereotypes. This mentality can be addressed and in time even changed,” Dr Borg said.
She also pointed to the fact that while there were 1,051 women enrolled in education courses, the figure plummeted to 260 for men. A stark contrast in the number of men opting to follow courses in health and welfare was also noted, with 1,686 females and 810 males.
“It clearly all boils down to gender stereotypes for both men and women.
“Men seem to refrain from opting for careers in the care industry. That too needs to be addressed,” Dr Borg said, adding that today’s society needed more men in this particular sector.
The figures also showed that despite an increase of 22.2 per cent in the number of women opting to read for PhD courses, men still outnumbered women at this level.
“There are still too many issues with gender stereotypes, as is evident when such figures are published, and it’s high time we start addressing them,” Dr Borg said.
The most popular field of study in tertiary education was business, administration and law, with 25.7 per cent of the total students.
This was followed by students in health and welfare (18.9 per cent), arts and humanities (12 per cent), education (9.9 per cent) and social sciences, journalism and information (9.5 per cent).
claire.caruana@timesofmalta.com