However, the results of the GCSE exams, recently sat by thousands of teenagers all over the country, have revealed the needle has made a significant shift. A report in The Times has unveiled that overall, girls performed better in maths and physics compared to previous years (with an odd twist also showing that boys achieved more top grades in English).
These results will have pleased the organisers of recent campaigns to increase the number of female STEM exam entries with, for example, a 14% increase in the number of girls sitting the computing exam compared to 2018 (with only a 5.9% increase in boys). These campaigns have included the use of female teachers and former students to act as role models to encourage more girls to study sciences.
The performance gap between boys and girls halved in maths, while in physics, a subject traditionally dominated by boys, the gap was closed to the point where it is now almost non-existent.